From Neonates to Frailty: Pediatric and Geriatric Challenges in Emergency and Disaster Care

Children and older adults represent the extremes of age in emergency and disaster medicine, and they face disproportionate risk during acute illness, injury, and crisis events. At both ends of the life course, clinical presentation may be atypical, physiological reserve may be limited, dependency and communication barriers are common, and safe care often requires tailored equipment, dosing, monitoring, safeguarding, and specialized pathways. In older adults, frailty, multimorbidity, polypharmacy, cognitive impairment, and functional vulnerability complicate triage and decision-making; in pediatric populations, age-dependent physiology and weight-based interventions increase the need for precise assessment and systems readiness.

This Research Topic, led by BeSEDiM (Belgian Society of Emergency & Disaster Medicine) and aligned with its 2026 congress theme “The Extremes Of Age”, aims to advance clinically meaningful and operationally actionable evidence to improve outcomes for pediatric and geriatric patients across the emergency and disaster continuum. We welcome contributions spanning prehospital care, emergency departments, hospital interfaces (including ICU), mass-casualty incidents, infectious disease surges, climate-related events, and broader disaster preparedness and response. Submissions may include clinical studies, health-systems research, implementation and quality improvement work, ethical analyses, and policy-oriented manuscripts that can inform practice across diverse settings.

This Research Topic welcomes submissions on (non-exhaustive):

- Age-specific physiology and atypical presentations in acute illness and injury at the extremes of age

- Triage, risk stratification, and escalation decisions for pediatric and geriatric patients (including frailty-informed approaches)

- Prehospital/EMS care and transport pathways, including interfacility transfer considerations for children and older adults

- Emergency department and hospital interfaces (ED–ward–ICU), including monitoring strategies and recognition of deterioration

- Medication safety and therapeutics (pediatric weight-based dosing; geriatric polypharmacy/high-risk medications)

- Trauma and critical illness management in pediatric and older adult populations across routine and crisis conditions

- Disaster preparedness and response for children and older adults (mass-casualty incidents, outbreaks, climate-related events, mass gatherings)

- Ethics, communication, safeguarding, and decision-making (capacity, consent/assent, caregiver involvement, vulnerable persons)

- Systems, training, and simulation to improve readiness, human factors, and team performance for extremes of age

- Outcomes and quality improvement/implementation science, including patient-centered outcomes (function, quality of life, caregiver burden)

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review

Keywords: diatric emergency medicine, geriatric emergency medicine, frailty, triage, patient safety, transitions of care, EMS, implementation science, quality improvement

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.