International Perspectives On Public Health And Palliative Care

Public health approaches to palliative care have been growing in policy importance and practice acceptance. This innovative volume explores the major concepts, practice examples, and practice guidelines for this new approach. The goal of ‘comprehensive care’ – seamless support for patients as they transition between home based care and inpatient services – relies on the principles of health promotion and community development both to ensure services are available and importantly appropriate for patients’ needs. In developing contexts, where hospitals and hospices may be inaccessible, a public health approach provides not only continuity of care but greater access to good end of life care. This book provides both a historical and conceptual overview whilst offering practical case examples from affluent and developing contexts, in a range of clinical settings. Finally, it draws together research-based guidelines for future practice. Essential reading for public health researchers and practitioners with an interest in end of life care and global health as well as those involved in developing palliative care provision, International Perspectives on Public Health and Palliative Care is the first volume to present an overview of theory and practice in this emerging field.

Worldwide, more than 50 million people die each year and it is estimated on the basis of the conditions leading to death that up to 60% of them could benefit from some form of palliative care. It is a public health challenge to ensure that these people can access good palliative or end-of-life care. Pursuing good population health essentially also implies striving for a 'good enough death' and a good quality of care at the end of life. Safeguarding a good quality of the end of life for patient populations for whom it is appropriate requires a public health approach. In most developed countries ageing populations that increasingly die from chronic diseases after a prolonged -often degenerative- dying trajectory make up the public health challenges for palliative care. The very large baby boom generation will soon reach old age and can be expected to pose strong demands regarding the circumstances and care at their end of life. Only by applying a public health approach to palliative care (instead of individual patient perspectives), can societies successfully help to organize and plan end-of-life care in accordance with these aspirations. A Public Health Perspective on End of Life Care presents a synthesis and overview of relevant research and empirical data on the end of life that can bear a basis for a more systematic 'public health of the end of life'. The book focuses on population health, rather than clinical interventions or other aspects of individual health, and discusses studies using different methodologies (not only epidemiological research). The focus is on the quality of the end-of-life of populations, in particular from social sciences, environmental sciences, and humanities perspectives.

The ageing of society is becoming a major public health issue, posing challenges to social and health care structures in many countries. This book demonstrates the added value of palliative care which, although traditionally focused on cancer and the very end of life, can play a role in strengthening and complementing the care of older people. The book outlines the current state of worldwide policy work, research, and innovations in the field of public health and palliative care for older people and concludes with recommendations for policy and decision makers, at international and national level.

The ageing of society is becoming a major public health issue, posing challenges to social and health care structures in many countries. This book demonstrates the added value of palliative care which, although traditionally focused on cancer and the very end of life, can play a role in strengthening and complementing the care of older people. The book outlines the current state of worldwide policy work, research, and innovations in the field of public health and palliative care for older people and concludes with recommendations for policy and decision makers, at international and national level.

Focusing on population health and discussing studies using different methodologies, this title presents a synthesis and overview of relevant research and empirical data on the end of life that can bear a basis for a more systematic 'public health of the end of life'.

The first of its kind, this book describes pediatric palliative care in more than 23 countries. Each region in the world is covered and countries included are both resource poor and rich. Authors are multidisciplinary and regarded nationally and internationally in their field. Clinicians, advocates, policymakers, funders, and researchers will learn how programs were developed and implemented in each country. Authors describe children for whom pediatric palliative care is needed and provided for in their country. When applicable, a brief history of pediatric palliative care is included noting especially policy changes and legislative acts. For example, the chapter on Poland describes how pediatric palliative care grew from the Catholic church into a national movement spearheaded by several health care workers. The Pole national spirit that brought them through a change in political regime has also been a driving force in the pediatric palliative care movement. The chapter on South Africa, for example, illustrates how a resource poor country has been able to leverage philanthropic and government funding to make its dream of having an infrastructure of pediatric palliative care a reality. These are just a few examples of the inspiring stories that are included in this book. Readers from countries who wish to start a pediatric palliative care program, or advance an existing program, will learn valuable lessons from others who have faced similar barriers. Introduction and concluding chapters highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the modern pediatric palliative care movement.

This book provides a new outlook on the practice of palliative care worldwide. All five continents are represented in this book by global leaders in this relatively new subspecialty. The chapters in the book re-emphasize the fact that in the 21st century, most patients in the world still lack this elementary tool to alleviate suffering physical, and even more so, emotional and spiritual which are so critical to people, especially when patients conditions become fatal. An issue that comes up again and again from almost all parts of the world, regardless of religion and traditional backgrounds, ethnicities, beliefs or faith, refers to the critical lack of basic and advanced training for physicians, nurses, volunteers and the public at large. Healthcare professionals are currently not equipped with the principles of communication with both the patient and his/her relatives. These kinds of drawbacks have to be corrected immediately. Moreover, training courses, symposia and conferences do not require large amounts of funds and can be carried out in local countries and/or regions which share a common language, culture and faith. Each country needs to create a nucleus of local champions who would then take it upon themselves to educate as many people in their own countries with the support, guidance and encouragement of international organizations that are dedicated to this mission. Almost all of the larger international institutions, e.g., the UN and WHO, preach for improvement of the current situation. Unfortunately, responses are extremely slow and not efficient. This book calls for the global health community to urgently respond and bring about a rapid change in a totally unjustified situation that still prevails in over three-quarters of the world.

Compassionate communities are communities that provide assistance for those in need of end of life care, separate from any official heath service provision that may already be available within the community. This idea was developed in 2005 in Allan Kellehear’s seminal volume- Compassionate Cities: Public Health and End of Life Care. In the ensuing ten years the theoretical aspects of the idea have been continually explored, primarily rehearsing academic concerns rather than practical ones. Compassionate Communities: Case Studies from Britain and Europe provides the first major volume describing and examining compassionate community experiments in end of life care from a highly practical perspective. Focusing on community development initiatives and practice challenges, the book offers practitioners and policy makers from the health and social care sectors practical discussions on the strengths and limitations of such initiatives. Furthermore, not limited to providing practice choices the book also offers an important and timely impetus for other practitioners and policy makers to begin thinking about developing their own possible compassionate communities. An essential read for academic, practitioner, and policy audiences in the fields of public health, community development, health social sciences, aged care, bereavement care, and hospice & palliative care, Compassionate Communities is one of only a handful of available books on end of life care that takes a strong health promotion and community development approach.