David Clark (University of Glasgow, UK) and Annemarie Samuels (Leiden University, Netherlands) – Readers of E-Hospice involved in international efforts to implement palliative care will be aware of the need for access to research on the positioning of end of life care in society, across varied geographies and cultural contexts.
They will also know that this kind of material is sometimes hard to find. It can be lost among the growing body of clinically oriented publications, hidden behind paywalls, or found only in specialist journals that are difficult to locate.
As social scientists with established interests in these areas, we are therefore delighted to share details of a major new collection of writings by 60 contributors from 20 countries, and which focuses on the social aspects of end of life care in differing settings. Moreover, the entire volume is available on Open Access and free of charge.
When the invitation to edit a research Handbook of this kind came from Edward Elgar Publishing, it didn’t take us long to respond positively. Our interests in sociological and anthropological perspectives on end of life issues, as well as related policy studies and discourses of hospice and palliative care, meant we immediately saw the potential for a collaborative project which would bring together scholars, clinicians, and activists from many backgrounds and perspectives.
Our goal would be an edited volume of work casting new light and offering innovative commentaries on some enduring and challenging issues relating to care at the end of life.
Less than three years on, the result is a comprehensive Handbook that offers an accessible overview of research on palliative and end of life care in its social context, examining key theories, methods, and research findings.
In the Handbook, early career and established international contributors discuss themes of social inequalities in access to palliative care, growing pressures on health and social care systems, assisted dying, and new cultural responses to human mortality and bereavement.
The Handbook contains detailed case studies, on areas such as poverty and homelessness at the end of life, culturally specific nursing home care, end of life care pathways, and palliative care in post-colonial contexts. There are reflections on cultural associations relating to places of care, experiences and meanings surrounding pain, end of life care and the arts, as well as inter-cultural research practices and current approaches in public health and health policies relating to care at the end of life.
The collection has already received praise from major thought leaders in the field. It will be a vital resource for practitioners and policymakers in palliative and hospice care, as well as a robust guide for students and researchers of end of life who are working in the social sciences, social policy, public health, and related areas.
We hope it will be widely read, stimulating new and much needed critical conversations and perspectives on end of life care and society.
For Open Access to all 576 pages and 34 chapters of the Research Handbook on End of Life Care and Society (Edward Elgar, 2025), go here
Sad not to see a chapter on soul pain or spiritual care. Apart from that, this is a wonderful contribution to the field of palliative care. The editors need to be congratulated on bringing this together.