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. 

The Environmental Physiotherapy Association joins the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)

These are exciting times for environmental physiotherapy! Nearly exactly two years since the inception of the Environmental Physiotherapy Association (EPA), we are proud and delighted to say that we have become a member of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions...

How physiotherapy can take a central role in primary healthcare and climate change

Studying physiotherapy sparked my passion for what we call the ‘health care system’, and more specifically primary healthcare. I decided to follow up on this passion and pursue an advanced Master degree in Global Health, where I had the opportunity to dive deeper in...

Physiopunk – Speculative fiction for future physiotherapies

Environmental and sustainability education is often conspicuous in its absence from public health and healthcare professional programmes around the world. Yet to respond to the diverse and complex social, ecological and health challenges we are facing everywhere today...

Sinai University Holds Its First Environmental Physiotherapy Session

This October, Sinai University officially joined the Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda, becoming the first university in Egypt to do so. With the prompt support of the Dean of the Faculty of Physical Therapy, Prof. Awny Rahmy, a session was organized for physical...

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