What Are the Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities That Exist in Palliative Care?

Palliative care has become the standard of care for patients living with serious illness. Throughout health care systems and even within palliative care, racial and ethnic health disparities exist. Given these disparities, minority patients with serious illness seek care later in a disease trajectory, receive more aggressive care at the end of life, often have increased morbidity, and have inferior health outcomes. Research demonstrates that specialty palliative care improves patients’ quality of life and symptoms and assists with navigating care plans. Given the role palliative care has in improving health equity for patients with serious illness, future steps should include increasing palliative care training, expanding health equity in palliative care research, amplifying core palliative care skills education, and increasing palliative care access. This chapter discusses the current data on palliative care-related racial and ethnic disparities, specifically among Black and Hispanic populations, addressing disparities as it relates to access, receipt, and quality of care.