Advancing an environmentally responsible physiotherapy

 

The world faces complex and interrelated crises… Climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, rapid urbanization, geopolitical conflict and militarization, demographic change, population displacement, poverty, and widespread inequity create risks of future crises even more severe than those experienced today. Responses require investments that integrate planetary, societal, community and individual health and well-being (WHO 2021 Geneva Charter for Wellbeing)

 

 The impact of human activities on our planet’s natural systems has been intensifying rapidly in the past several decades, leading to disruption and transformation of most natural systems. These disruptions in the atmosphere, oceans, and across the terrestrial land surface are not only driving species to extinction, they pose serious threats to human health and wellbeing. Characterising and addressing these threats requires a paradigm shift (Myers, 2017)

Action at the level of direct drivers of nature decline, although necessary, is not sufficient … a sustainable global future’ is ‘only possible with urgent transformative change that tackles the root causes: the interconnected economic, socio-cultural, demographic, political, institutional, and technological indirect drivers behind the direct drivers (Diaz et al., 2019)

About

An international community of academics, clinicians, practitioners and students interested in exploring and advancing the field of environmental physiotherapy. 

Blog

Follow our latest musings on environmental physiotherapy. Ideas, inspiration, news, publications, events, and more. 

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Become part of the first international community of physiotherapists with an interest in researching, developing, and practising physiotherapy at a planetary scale. 

Resources

A growing selection of resources carefully selected by members of the EPA to inspire your thinking and practice of environmental physiotherapy. 

Nature-based interventions for physical health conditions: A systematic review and meta-analysis

On January 25, 2023, my PhD supervisor sat me down and asked me to visualise what I would like to see created to support the use of nature-based interventions (NBIs) in healthcare. The image was clear: I wanted to see a handbook of NBIs, outlining different NBIs, the...

From Physiotherapy to Environmental Sciences: an ongoing path to interdisciplinarity

In August 2021, the world received terrible news from the IPCC: the 6th assessment report is their “starkest warning yet” regarding current global climate issues (1). That news is everyone’s business, whoever we are. As a physiotherapist, I have been preoccupied too,...

What can physiotherapists learn from COVID-19 about the importance of accessing outdoor spaces?

For many of us, COVID-19 has meant restrictions on what we do and where we go. These restrictions may include lockdowns, which prevent us from leaving our homes, through to supervised quarantine, often in hotels. These restrictions have been criticised because of the...

Insights from the Act with Nature Study: A webinar from Nature Connection to Action on 28 May 2026

How can our relationship with nature support both human well-being and more sustainable ways of living? This question was at the heart of the Act with Nature research project, whose key findings will be presented in the webinar From Nature Connection to Action on 28...

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