Community perspectives on advance care planning: report from the Community Ethics Program

The objectives of the Community Ethics Program are to increase community awareness about advance care planning to address patient preferences concerning future care, and to improve hospital-community collaboration around care at end of life in diverse communities. As part of this educational program, community forums and focus groups were held with African-American, Korean-American, and Latino communities in Philadelphia between 2000 and 2001. In this paper, we discuss concerns related to end of life and advance care planning specific to each community, as well as themes that cut across communities. Increasing our understanding of community views and perspectives on potential barriers to advance care planning, particularly through a hospital-community partnership, is an important step toward enhancing the quality of end of life care for all patients.