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. 

Observations from being an environmental coordinator at a Norwegian hospital

Three years ago I was appointed as “environmental coordinator” of the physiotherapy department at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway, in addition to working full time as a physiotherapist in the burns centre of the hospital. The goal is for every...

The Posthuman Walking Project

The Posthuman Walking Project is a transdisciplinary collaboration of physiotherapy and visual arts academics and persons with experience of living with persistent pain.  The project explores the entanglement of human and non-human entities when walking with pain. As...

Umwelt und Gesundheit in der MSK – muskuloskelettale Physiotherapie – von der Klimakrise zu naturbasierter Physiotherapie

Seit 2024 bin ich Teil des Herausgeber:innen-Teams der MSK – Zeitschrift für muskuloskelettale Physiotherapie. Die Fachzeitschrift fokussiert sich in jeder Ausgabe auf ein Schwerpunktthema, welches mit drei Artikeln aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven beleuchtet wird....

Planetare Gesundheit in ErgoLogoPhysio – Welche Rolle spielen wir in der Klimakrise?

Die Health for Future Arbeitsgruppe ErgoLogoPhysio (ELP) lädt zusammen mit der Planetary Health Academy der Deutschen Allianz Klimawandel und Gesundheit e.V. (KLUG) zu einer kostenlosen, interaktiven Online-Veranstaltungsreihe zum Thema „Planetare Gesundheit in...

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