Participation Type
Paper
Session Title
Session 5.10 Race and Ethnicity
Presentation #1 Title
End-of-life Care and Rural African Americans: a Study of Barriers and Solutions.
Presentation #1 Abstract or Summary
Rural African Americans are an underserved social group within end-of-life care. This group is underserved due to barriers that are inclusive of historical institutional racism and group shared ethics such as avoidance, and a “never let die” attitude. The historical issues that are included in this racial bias are inclusive but not limited to the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments and the treatment of Henrietta Lacks by the collective medical community. An ethic of community avoidance of topics that are related to death and end-of-life planning is prevalent among rural African Americans. This leads to a lack of preparedness when the aging or terminal member passes. The group attitude of never giving up against illness leads to more aggressive hospital treatments, and a bias against the idea of comforting the patient into death. End-of-life care, inclusive of hospice and palliative care, has a different philosophy of dying, to die with comfort and dignity in a pain and symptom managed environment. End-of-life care is a team based approach to care that includes end-of-life planning and specialized medical services. A thorough investigation into this difference of approach must be utilized in order to understand how this is an issue in respect to other served groups in the end-of-life care system. The differences in the perspective of end-of-life care are present, and can be mediated. This research seeks to analyze social trends that cause this mismatching and then present solutions to mediate these issues.
At-A-Glance Bio- Presenter #1
Aaron Hemlepp is an undergrad student in Marshall University's social work program. He has aspirations to work in Appalachian hospice care centers.
End-of-life Care and Rural African Americans: a Study of Barriers and Solutions.
Harris Hall 139
Rural African Americans are an underserved social group within end-of-life care. This group is underserved due to barriers that are inclusive of historical institutional racism and group shared ethics such as avoidance, and a “never let die” attitude. The historical issues that are included in this racial bias are inclusive but not limited to the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments and the treatment of Henrietta Lacks by the collective medical community. An ethic of community avoidance of topics that are related to death and end-of-life planning is prevalent among rural African Americans. This leads to a lack of preparedness when the aging or terminal member passes. The group attitude of never giving up against illness leads to more aggressive hospital treatments, and a bias against the idea of comforting the patient into death. End-of-life care, inclusive of hospice and palliative care, has a different philosophy of dying, to die with comfort and dignity in a pain and symptom managed environment. End-of-life care is a team based approach to care that includes end-of-life planning and specialized medical services. A thorough investigation into this difference of approach must be utilized in order to understand how this is an issue in respect to other served groups in the end-of-life care system. The differences in the perspective of end-of-life care are present, and can be mediated. This research seeks to analyze social trends that cause this mismatching and then present solutions to mediate these issues.
