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. 

Embedding Sustainability in Physiotherapy Education – A CSP Webinar

Physiotherapists are not only health care practitioners, they are also health advocates. When we understand that the wellbeing of people and the planet are closely connected, we can see the importance of embedding sustainability into physiotherapy education and the...

Have we ever treated patients yet? Actor-network theory and the changing patient in a changing world

Have you ever wondered who or what the patient truly is? In medicine, the patient is defined as “a person who is ill or undergoing treatment for a disease.” (Dictionary, 2023) Yet, in my opinion, this definition paints a narrow, one-dimensional portrait of the patient...

Connecting with nature as homework in physiotherapy – A Bsc thesis reflection

There is rarely a day when I don't go out, because I feel like my body really calls for it. Physiotherapy starts within us, within you, within yourself. If you feel tension right now you might be better off scrolling to the next picture and put the words into...

Fluctuating Barometric Pressure – A Cause for Increase in Arthritic Pain?

How often have you heard a patient say, “This weather… oh, my arthritic knees”! Some patients say that with such conviction, but is there a correlation between weather changes and arthritic pain? Osteoarthritis (OA) is characterized by synovial inflammation, articular...

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