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 WHO Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health: A brief analysis with a view to the role of physiotherapy organisations

On 15 May 2025, the World Health Assembly (WHO) adopted the inaugural Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health (2025–2028) during the 78th World Health Assembly (WHA78). The plan aligns with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and...

Landscape design and the health professions: An expanded vision of interprofessional collaboration

According to Mattessich and Monsey, interprofessional collaboration is a “a mutually beneficial and well-defined relationship entered into by 2 or more organizations to achieve common goals” (1992, p. 7). For many in allied healthcare, interprofessional collaboration...

Coming soon: The Environmental Physiotherapy Community Roundtable 2021

It is that time of the year again. Time for the next environmental physiotherapy roundtable, but with a twist. In its third iteration, we are pleased to invite you to the first-ever multilingual Environmental Physiotherapy Community Roundtable! Having grown to over...

Does conserving biodiversity and restoring degraded ecosystems influence human health?

While decades of research show that degraded environments can harm health, and that exposure to green spaces supports human health, there is still a critical, under-investigated question: Can the conservation of biodiversity and restoration of degraded ecosystems lead...

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