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. 

A collaborative approach towards physical activity promotion

Observing the national statistics of physical inactivity in the UK and acknowledging the difficulty of changing a habit, there is a need to explore new methods and ways to help more people to be active. The socio-ecological model of active living (Sallis et al. 2006)...

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...

Giving the right names to emerging areas of environmental physiotherapy practice

As our understanding of the many different connections between physiotherapy and the environment continues to grow, and we advance research and education across the breadth of environmental physiotherapy (EPT), the many implications this has for physiotherapy practice...

Los límites planetarios: cuando el planeta dice ¡Basta!

¿Sabes cuáles son los límites planetarios? Tras el extraordinario progreso de las Ciencias de la Tierra y de los sistemas naturales durante las últimas décadas; en el 2009, un grupo de 29 científicos liderados por Johan Rockström comenzaron a definir lo que hoy se...

If you have any thoughts, ideas or questions about environmental physiotherapy,
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