title: Racial/ethnic minority access to end-of-life care: a conceptual framework.
abstract: Minority underutilization of hospice care has been well-documented; however, explanations addressing disparities have failed to examine the scope of factors in operation. Drawing from previous health care access models, a framework is proposed in which access to end-of-life care results from an interaction between patient-level, system-level, and societal-level barriers with provider-level mediators. The proposed framework introduces an innovative mediating factor missing in previous models, provider personal characteristics, to better explain care access disparities. This article offers a synthesis of previous research and proposes a framework that is useful to researchers and clinicians working with minorities at end of life.
authors.affiliation: University of Southern California, Davis School of Gerontology, Los Angeles, California 90089-0191, USA. laguna@usc.edu
authors.forename: Jeff
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Laguna
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Enguídanos
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Siciliano
authors.forename: Alexis
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Coulourides-Kogan
mesh_terms: D003210:Concept Formation; D003625:Data Collection; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008913:Minority Groups; D013727:Terminal Care