EURIPA 2026
Abstract Book
15th EURIPA Rural Health Forum
Cartagena, Spain
October 1–3, 2026
Abstract
Welcome to the Abstract Book of the 15th EURIPA Rural Health Forum 2026. This year, rural health workers from Europe meet in the city of Cartagena, Murcia Region, in southeastern Spain to share our experiences, our knowledge of rural medicine, and our vision for the future. The millennial Mediterranean city of Cartagena is the meeting place for European rural health professionals. Since Cartagena is the distillation of a European community built on the basis of a common asset such as the Mediterranean Sea, the rural health professionals meet in Cartagena on the basis of a common interest such as rural medicine and a shared experience such as the peculiarities of European rurality. Cartagena and its surroundings exemplify the evolving complexity of the rural world in Europe and the challenges health workers face in serving rural communities across the continent. Diversity is a source of that complexity. We view the diversity of contexts and communities as an advantage, not a handicap, for building a solid body of knowledge as health workers and health researchers, which is why we celebrate it at this Rural Forum in Cartagena.
This year, the EURIPA rural health forum is held in parallel with the Spanish national rural medicine congress of the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC), and together we will explore the prospects for rural medicine and the foundations of our work as rural doctors. In this Abstract Book, we also present the interest of rural medicine in the integration of a growing variety of new technologies, the evidence on the organisation of medical services in the provision of rural health and the rural proofing of policies applied to this field. We also pay attention to the deployment of preventive programmes in the rural world, the integration of long-term care in rural settings and the provision of mental health services for rural communities,
among other subjects.
The response to the call for abstracts has been remarkable, both in volume and in scientific quality. This Book gathers 78 abstracts, which will reach the Forum in a variety of formats: 38 oral presentations, 27 posters, 9 hands-on workshops and 4 one-slide 5-minute presentations. More than half (54%) report original research, accompanied by 16 case reports and 16 study proposals; in other words, the research of tomorrow taking shape today. The contributions come from 19 countries, with the UK, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Ireland among the most represented. This geography itself demonstrates the theme we chose for this Forum: Embracing Rural Diversity.
Beyond the numbers, our international scoring panel has confirmed the high scientific standard of this year’s submissions, with strong average peer-review scores and a median well above the scale’s midpoint. This promises a scientific programme in Cartagena as rigorous as it is diverse, and we are grateful to every reviewer who has given time and expertise to this process.
We present this Abstract Book as an example of rural health professionals’ efforts to push the limits of rural medicine knowledge and as proof of the strong community of rural health workers across Europe that makes better rural health possible, embracing a challenging and fulfilling diversity.
Juan Barranco, Chair of the Organising Committee
Ferdinando Petrazzuoli, EURIPA President
Key words: rural health, health inequalities, rural and remote communities, coastal communities