Palliative Care in the Global Context

Palliative care has grown tremendously across the world since the establishment of first modern hospice by Cecily Saunders in the United Kingdom in late 1960s. Two decades later in 1986 the WHO developed the first definition of palliative care. Subsequent revisions were done in 1996 and 2002 to reflect the increasing need for comprehensive palliative care to encompass. In 1990 the WHO pioneered the Public Health Strategy a model aimed at helping countries integrate palliative care into the existing healthcare systems. This is partly as a result of the WHO leadership palliative care has grown tremendously. Other factors have contributed to this growth as well. However there has been little systematic documentation and analysis of this growth or of the current status of palliative care worldwide. This project employed a mixed methods approach to explore the underlying frameworks and concepts for palliative care standards in different countries and to investigate the salient factors associated with growth of palliative care around the world.