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. 

Hand in Hand We Can Make a Change: EPT student activities at Qatar University

Nature is a masterpiece, a symphony of colors, sounds, and scents. There is no doubt that this beauty is fading over time. Isn’t it time to start making a difference in our environment? At Qatar university, we are increasing our efforts in implementing environmental...

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...

Seeing as caring part three: Reconcile

Reconciliation in my art didn’t arrive as a grand revelation. It came as a slow, uncomfortable noticing that I was being pulled in opposite directions and still choosing to stand in the middle. On one side is my clinical life: evidence hierarchies, risk–benefit...

Can greenspace exposure improve pain outcomes?

Have you ever told a patient to spend more time in greenspaces to help reduce their pain? I haven’t, but this simple intervention may improve pain outcomes for our patients. It was not something I had given a lot of thought to, until a discussion with colleagues last...

If you have any thoughts, ideas or questions about environmental physiotherapy,
we would love to hear from you anytime

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