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Enhancing European Public Health Preparedness, Prehospital, and Disaster Medicine
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WADEM 2027 – Abstract Submission Closes on 1 November!
Share your research, reports, reviews, or policy proposals at the upcoming 24th Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine (WADEM 2027). The congress theme is: Research, Relevance, Resilience: Enhancing performance in disaster and emergency medicine for communities, responders, and ecosystems.
Submissions are encouraged across 14 categories that represent a wide range of themes related to disaster medicine, prehospital care, and the health aspects of emergency management and complex humanitarian crises. Select abstracts presented at the congress will be published in an online supplement to WADEM’s journal, Prehospital and Disaster Medicine (PDM), on Cambridge Core. Abstracts must have a proper ethics determination to be published in PDM.
The deadline to submit an abstract is 23:59 (CST – North America) on 1 November. For an abstract to be formally accepted, included in the program, and considered for publication in the supplement, the presenting author must be registered and paid to attend the Congress by 15 February 2027.
To submit an abstract for the congress, you will need to create an Oxford Abstracts (OA) account if you do not already have one, or log in to OA using a LinkedIn or Google account.
Abstract Submission Categories
Authors will need to select one of the following 14 categories for their abstract submission depending on which is the most applicable.
- Capacity Building
- Emergency, Critical, and Operative (ECO) Care – Acute Care Action Network
- Health Systems
- Health Workforce Development
- Hospital Burden and Business Continuity Plan
- Long-Term Disaster Planning
- Public Advocacy and Crisis Communication
- Education, Training, and Research
- Far Afield
- Aeromedical Retrieval and Evacuation
- Austere Supply Chain and Contingency Logistics
- Prehospital Care and Transport
- Resource Allocation
- Wilderness and Remote Medicine
- Global Operational and Tactical Medicine
- Attacks on Health Care Workers and Facilities
- CBRNe/HAZMAT
- Conflict Medicine and Hybrid Warfare
- Counter-Terrorism Medicine
- Humanitarian and Population Health
- Displaced Populations
- Equity
- Ethics
- Palliative Care
- Vulnerable Populations
- Integrative Health
- Dentistry
- Environmental Health
- One Health and Veterinary Medicine
- Pharmacy
- Primary Care
- Public Health
- Rehabilitation
- Transdisciplinary Collaboration
- Mass Gathering and Event Medicine
- Medical Assistance
- Civilian-Military Collaboration
- Coordination
- International Emergency Medical Teams (iEMTs)
- National Emergency Medical Teams (nEMTs)
- Mental Health and Psychosocial Support
- Responders (The Second Victim)
- Population Impact
- Worker Stress and Burnout
- Natural Hazards and Risk
- Climate Change
- Disaster Risk Reduction
- Extreme Weather
- Infectious Diseases
- New and Existing Technologies
- Diagnostics
- Forensics
- Laboratory Sciences
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Data Capture and Management
- Robotics
- Drones
- Simulation
- Logistics
- Nursing
- “Outside the Box” – (Innovation and Miscellaneous)
- Pediatrics
Featured Articles from Prehospital and Disaster Medicine
Capacity-Responsive COVID-19 Testing Performance in Emergency Departments: Turnaround Time Thresholds for Lateral Flow Assay and Polymerase Chain Reaction Strategies
The fastest test is not always the fastest system. During the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency departments often had to choose between rapid bedside tests (lateral flow assays) and laboratory PCR testing. Bedside tests provide results within minutes but rely on emergency department staff and space, whereas PCR takes longer but is processed by the laboratory. A study of more than 31,000 emergency visits in Taiwan found that the operational performance of these two strategies depended on system conditions. Read the full-text article…
MARS E-ECG: Prehospital Electrocardiogram Teletransmission by Firefighter Rescuers: A Retrospective Pilot Study within a Physician-Based EMS System
Early prehospital ECG teletransmission by firefighter first responders can provide emergency physicians with valuable diagnostic information before an advanced medical team arrives. A retrospective pilot study published in PDM evaluated the implementation of the MARS E-ECG teletransmission system within a physician-led emergency medical service in France. The system enabled dispatch physicians to remotely interpret ECGs recorded in the field, supporting earlier recognition of acute cardiac conditions.
Prehospital ECG teletransmission helped refine medical decision-making, adapt the level of prehospital resources when necessary, and facilitate earlier referral of selected patients to appropriate cardiac care pathways. Read the full-text article…
Listen to the Recent Podcasts
Tokyo Congress Abstracts Supplement is now on Cambridge Core!
The abstracts supplement from the 23rd Congress on Disaster and Emergency Medicine is now available online on Cambridge Core! The supplement includes nearly 700 abstracts presented at the congress from the plenary sessions, reports from the field, oral and lightning presentations, roundtable talks, and posters. The full supplement can also be downloaded here.
Posted Online – 23 March 2026
Thank you for joining us in Tokyo. The congress was a huge success!
More than 1,250 delegates from over 80 countries gathered at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo from 2-6 May 2025 for WADEM’s first congress in Asia since 2011 to share research, exchange ideas and experiences, and connect with friends and colleagues. Special thanks to Dr. Osamu Kunii, Prof. Sang Do Shin, Prof. Saini Yang, Dr. Masahiro Morikawa, Dr. Luca Pigozzi, Prof. April Llaneta, and Prof. Elizabeth Newnham for their excellent plenary presentations.
WADEM would also like to acknowledge the special sessions organized by the ARCH Project, WHO Kobe Centre, Kyoto University, Tohoku University, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), World Society of Disaster Nursing, Prof. Jeffrey Franc, and New Orleans EMS and University Medical Center Trauma Center. These sessions greatly contributed to the scientific program.
WADEM would especially like to thank all the delegates, many of whom traveled long distances, for joining us in Tokyo! The wide variety of professions and nationalities represented truly makes the congress a memorable event.
Colloquium – Enhancing European Public Health Preparedness, Prehospital, and Disaster Medicine
The colloquium aimed to seek consensus from professional associations, international organizations, expert stakeholders, and citizens on adaptive ways forward for the discipline to enhance existing public health curricula in the face of emerging threats. Public and global health are challenged by unprecedented population growth, human migration, urbanization, natural disasters, climate change, war and conflict, and novel disease emergence.
