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 Environmental Physiotherapy Roundtable: A live-streaming event

On Tuesday 26 November 2019 a group of members of the Environmental Physiotherapy Association (EPA) will be coming together in an online roundtable to talk about what environmental physiotherapy is, could, and should be going forward. The event will be live-streamed...

What happened to Physiotherapy? Reflections on Professional Identity in Outdoor Rehabilitation

How can physiotherapists contribute to meaningful aging through outdoor activities? And what happens to professional identity when physiotherapists move beyond the clinic and into nature? These were some of the key questions we sought to explore in our project on...

Connecting with nature as homework in physiotherapy – A Bsc thesis reflection

There is rarely a day when I don't go out, because I feel like my body really calls for it. Physiotherapy starts within us, within you, within yourself. If you feel tension right now you might be better off scrolling to the next picture and put the words into...

The X-files: Animals in physiotherapy

The relationship between animals and physiotherapy is not a widely explored arena, though one that should get significantly more attention in light of today's environmental crises. Truth is, I am completely out of my depth here, but I am nonetheless going to jump in...

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

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