Culture and Palliative Care: Preferences, Communication, Meaning, and Mutual Decision-Making

Palliative care is gaining acceptance across the world. However, even when palliative care resources exist, both the delivery and distribution of services too often is neither equitably nor acceptably provided to diverse population groups. The goal of this paper is to illustrate tensions in the delivery of palliative care for diverse patient populations in order to help clinicians to improve care for all. We begin by defining and differentiating between culture, race, and ethnicity, so that these terms—often used interchangeably—are not conflated and are more effectively used in caring for diverse populations.

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