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 Role of Physiotherapists in Wilderness Medicine

As the profession of physical therapy advances, clinicians are looking for creative ways to apply their skill sets. In recent years, wilderness medicine has been growing in popularity within the physical therapy realm. Wilderness medicine is characterized by remote...

Én helse, bærekraft og fysioterapi med hest

I en nylig publisert podcast diskuterer Professor Tobba Sudmann folkehelse og bærekraft. Sudmann er fysioterapeut, så bærekraft og fysioterapi bli tatt opp med jevne mellomrom.  Hun er opptatt av sammenhengen mellom hvordan vi lever, hva vi gjør og hvordan vi tenker...

Putting nature-based health and therapy into practice – An international online symposium

One year after the first-ever Environmental Physiotherapy Festival, we arranged an international online symposium on 'Putting nature-based health and therapy into practice'. This symposium featured four 90-minute sessions with presentations by a wide variety of...

Members voices: Why physiotherapists are joining the EPA and what they are already thinking and doing about environmental physiotherapy

The Environmental Physiotherapy Assocation (EPA) continues to grow by the day. Members are pouring in from all corners of the world and all areas of our profession, including students, teachers, clinicians, researchers and professional representatives, and all of them...

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