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. 

Access to clean and healthy environments is now a universal human right

The United Nations (UN) declared access to clean and healthy environments a universal human right in July 2022. This historic decision was voted in favour by 161 countries. But what exactly does this mean? And how does this apply to health care and rehabilitation?...

Monkey business – Pain in humans and other animals

As a veterinary and human physical therapist and wildlife rehabilitator, specialised in primates, I am intrigued by the differences and (more interesting) the similarities between species. When it comes to pain, there’s a large variety in behaviours. This variety in...

A physiotherapist by profession, an environmentalist by passion

I was born and raised in Malta, a small island found in the middle of the Mediterranean that is hit with extreme currents from the North (coming from Greece and Italy) and South (from Libya and Tunis). Experiencing an island life, I always felt very close to the sea,...

The EPA joins the Planetary Health Alliance

We are excited to have joined the Planetary Health Alliance, a consortium of over 200 universities, non-governmental organizations, research institutes, and government entities from around the world committed to understanding and addressing global environmental change...

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

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