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. 

Join

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. 

Sustainability in orthopaedic physiotherapy and rehabilitation

With the goal of decarbonization and carbon neutrality in the health sectors of many countries by 2050, health professionals must implement systemic changes in clinical practice to reduce carbon use, whilst meeting equity targets and improving health outcomes. Methods...

Is Environmental Healthcare Feasible for the U.S. Healthcare System?

U.S. American healthcare is a huge business. The U.S. “spends the most of any nation by far on its health care system, nearly one-fifth of GDP, “which makes it a trillion-dollar business (1). Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal, author of An American Sickness, explains that...

More ways than one

There is every reason to be seriously concerned and even frightened about the future of life and health on the world today. Soil erosion and degradation, loss of biodiversity, global warming, pollution, deforestation, ocean acidification and all the other closely...

The X-files: Animals in physiotherapy

The relationship between animals and physiotherapy is not a widely explored arena, though one that should get significantly more attention in light of today's environmental crises. Truth is, I am completely out of my depth here, but I am nonetheless going to jump in...

If you have any thoughts, ideas or questions about environmental physiotherapy,
we would love to hear from you anytime

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