CULTURES & CUSTOMS:

• American Psychological Association:

• Culturally Diverse Communities & End-of-Life Care
• Diversity Issues in End-of-Life Decision-Making

• End-of-Life Care: The Latino Culture

• End-of-Life Care: The Vietnamese Culture

• United Press International:

• "Homeless have end-of-life care worries" (03/29/07) -- Synopsis: A U.S. study published in the April, 2007 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine made two general findings: Homeless participants worried about dying in a place where no one would find them & dying in anonymity, with no memorialization; and they expressed fear about not being cared for compassionately or adequately by healthcare providers because of their homelessness.

• Washington Post:

• "At the End of Life, a Racial Divide Minorities Are More Likely to Want Aggressive Care, Studies Show", by Rob Stein (Page A01, 03/12/07)
  
• Excerpt: "After lives in which they often struggle to get medical care, African Americans and other minorities are more likely than whites to want, and get, more aggressive care as death nears and are less likely to use hospice and palliative-care services to ease their suffering, according to a large body of research and leading experts. As a result, they are more likely to experience more medicalized deaths, dying more frequently in the hospital, in pain, on ventilators and with feeding tubes -- often after being resuscitated or getting extra rounds of chemotherapy, dialysis or other care, studies show."
• See also: Daily Health Policy Report, posted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, entitled "Minorities More Likely Than Whites To Seek Aggressive End-of-Life Care, Studies Find" (03/12/07).