Choice depends on options: A public health framework incorporating the social determinants of dying to create options at end of life

Abstract

Our choice for care at the end of our lives is constrained by many factors, including the options available to us, our capacity to choose and the social structures that constrain our options and therefore our choices. Working with the interaction between personal agency and social constraints is a core public health activity. An intentional public health approach to palliative and end-of-life care can elucidate the direct relationship between our social circumstances and the quality of our end of life and uncover the implications of structural inequity for end-of-life choice. The approach reorients systems and settings to achieve accessible and equitable palliative and end of-life care for all, and identifies contributions that all jurisdictions, settings, organisations, sectors and communities can make to improving end-of-life care outcomes. Frameworks that support this shift in practice and policy are however in their infancy. Implementation frameworks that can structure and guide ‘how’ to translate public health palliative care concepts into sustainable practice are needed. This paper reports on an evidence-based Australian public health palliative care framework designed to achieve this.

Keywords:

• Public health
• Palliative care
• Public health palliative care
• Compassionate communities
• Compassionate cities
• End of life
• Social determinants of health

Acknowledgements

Thank you to both Bruce Rumbold and Emma Sayers for feedback and comments on earlier drafts.

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services, State Government of Victoria (203) and The JO & JR Wicking Trust.