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. 

Upcoming EPT Webinar: What Do You Stand For? A Journey Into the World of Environmental Physiotherapy

What Do You Stand For? A Journey Into the World of Environmental Physiotherapy We are living in complex and challenging times. As actors in health care systems we must be prepared to act and provide our services in light of multiple social-ecological crises. Starting...

Nachhaltigkeit im Praxisalltag und der Physiotherapie im Allgemeinen – Präsentation auf der TheraPro 2020 in Stuttgart

New EPA member Hannah Krappmann is grabing the bull by its horns and will be presenting her thoughts on sustainability in physiotherapy at the TheraPro Fair and Congress in Stuttgart Germany between 07.-09.02.2020. Hannah also serves as a current board member in the...

Environmental physiotherapy at the bottom of the Arctic Sea

A little over one year ago, one of our first-year physiotherapy students at UiT The Arctic University of Norway wrote a fictional account of a future in which multidisciplinary teams of natural scientists, physiotherapists and many others were tasked to sail to the...

Avantouinti: Incorporating traditional Finnish Winter Swimming into Physiotherapy for treating Chronic Pain

Diving into the world of science for the first time did not feel much more different than jumping into ice-cold water for the first time. Both experiences are somewhat challenging and at the same time can be life changing for patients and physiotherapists. With this...

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