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 Uprising – An EPA regional roundtables event

Since the launch of the Environmental Physiotherapy Association (EPA) in mid-2019, the EPA has been growing steadily and currently unites over 1500 international members. With people in all corners and time zones of the world, speaking all sorts of different...

Launching the Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda 2023

Over the last 3 months, the EPA exec and a group of EPA members have steadily been working on our biggest project yet and we are beyond excited to finally launch it today:  The Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda 2023 The Environmental Physiotherapy Agenda 2023 (EPT...

Why preventative healthcare is critical to sustainable healthcare and how physiotherapy supports this

Although the healthcare sector is a critical service provider in every country, it possesses a significant environmental footprint (Malik, Lenzen, McAlister, & McGain, 2018). Without intervention, emissions from the healthcare sector are predicted to rise due to a...

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,
we would love to hear from you anytime

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