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 new way to think about physiotherapy

As a physio, I’ve always been drawn to lung disease, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say I’m drawn to people who are suffering with lung diseases.  But then that’s not exactly right either, because I’m really fascinated by how the lungs work (did you know that...

Insights from the Act with Nature Study: A webinar from Nature Connection to Action on 28 May 2026

How can our relationship with nature support both human well-being and more sustainable ways of living? This question was at the heart of the Act with Nature research project, whose key findings will be presented in the webinar From Nature Connection to Action on 28...

Advancing Environmental Physiotherapy at the Sustainability Congress in Coimbra Polytechnic Institute

At the recent 7ª Conferência Campus Sustentável (CCS2025), a Sustainability Congress held in Coimbra, Portugal, I was pleased to share two initiatives reflecting EPA's mission: integrating environmental and planetary health across physiotherapy education and practice....

Physiotherapy and the Philosophy of Anti-Planetary Practice

In a recent article in Cosmos and History, I try to reconstruct the implicit belief systems of people who work against the Earth. Athletes like gymnasts and pole vaulters are counted among these anti-planetary practitioners, and so are many physiotherapists. For all...

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