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. 

Breaking up the boundaries of our profession and creating something meaningful – Living the Oneness of One Health

Things are packed, and the passport is ready. Now it's just a matter of getting on the train and embarking on an adventure. Quite unexpectedly, as a Master's Student in Physiotherapy, I was accepted for the One Health Summer School in Edinburgh, organized by Una...

Roots and Relations – Garden to Connect, Rwanda

What is the relation between growing plants, reused plastic pipes and physiotherapy? I have often been asked this, since I have engaged in urban gardening in Rwanda and Denmark. My personal path to connect the dots contains two meetings and an opportunity, which I...

Blurring the Boundaries: Complex Adaptive Systems, Sense of Self, and Our Collective Evolution

At the first-ever Environmental Physiotherapy Festival 2023 I held a presentation beginning with a brief introduction on complex adaptive systems- a unifying area of study that encompasses information, evolution, neuroscience, and systems theories to shed light on an...

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...

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