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. 

The personal connection: Reflections on communication in environmental physiotherapy

A few weeks ago the inaugural Environmental Physiotherapy Association (EPA) executive committee met for the first ever online meeting to get to know each other, get an understanding of the status quo of the association 3 months after it's official launch and plan some...

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....

Unless someone like… me! – A personal reflection on this World Environment Day 2020

It was around this time of year, 20 years ago, that I sold my last car. Ingrid and I were heading to London to live and so the sale was necessary. But the fact that we have not bought a car since, to many, is remarkable – so this reflection is a celebration of that.I...

Sinai University Holds Its First Environmental Physiotherapy Session

This October, Sinai University officially joined the Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda, becoming the first university in Egypt to do so. With the prompt support of the Dean of the Faculty of Physical Therapy, Prof. Awny Rahmy, a session was organized for physical...

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