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. 

Building the sustainable healthcare movement

The Environmental Physiotherapy Association and Health Care Without Harm Europe are excited to announce a new strategic partnership to advance the sustainable healthcare movement. Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) Europe exists to create a sustainable healthcare sector....

Time for a greener hand therapy: a call to arms

Over the last decade, many of us have been making the move to a more sustainable way of living. Small incremental steps that collectively add up. Think of the re-fillable coffee cups, tote bags, and widespread shunning of single-use plastic. Consider the food waste...

Roots and Relations – Garden to Connect, Rwanda

What is the relation between growing plants, reused plastic pipes and physiotherapy? I have often been asked this, since I have engaged in urban gardening in Rwanda and Denmark. My personal path to connect the dots contains two meetings and an opportunity, which I...

Healthpunk Vol 2 – Call for Stories

After the incredible success of Physiopunk Vol 1 - Speculative fiction for future physiotherapies, I am really excited to share this Call of Stories for what will be our second volume, open to all healthcare professions, all languages, students, clinicians, academics...

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

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