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. 

Environmental physiotherapy and ENPHE The European Network of Physiotherapy in Higher Education

Exciting news seem a near regularity in environmental physiotherapy now. And why not. With so much that still needs doing, we need them very much. The latest in the series, effective as of today, is a new partnership with ENPHE - The European Network of Physiotherapy...

Moving physiotherapy outdoors

Lancashire and North West England. The wettest part of a wet country. So, maybe not the first place one would think of when developing a business model incorporating outdoor rehabilitation. However, the flip side of our, at times, particularly soggy climate brings a...

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...

An evidence-based guide for decarbonizing physiotherapy clinics

Climate change is the largest threat to human health and wellbeing globally (WHO, 2021). The healthcare industry itself currently contributes to fuelling the climate crisis with its emissions and material consumption (Karliner et al., 2020). There has been much...

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

12 + 11 =