Health inequities and social determinants of health in refugee and immigrant communities.

This article evaluates and elucidates the intersections across social and economic determinants of health and social structures that maintain current inequities and structural violence with a focus on the impact on imMigrants (immigrants and migrants), refugees, and those who remain invisible (e.g., people without immigration status who reside in the United States) from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities.

A model of collaborative immigration advocacy to prevent policy-based trauma and harm.

Objective: Research suggests that antiimmigrant policies enacted in the United States, magnified during the 2016-2020 period, propagate widespread trauma across communities of immigrants (von Werthern et al., 2018). While these policies harm all groups of immigrants, structural conditions (e.

Palliative Care and Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke: A Policy Statement From the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

The mission of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association includes increasing access to high-quality, evidence-based care that improves patient outcomes such as health-related quality of life and is consistent with the patients' values, preferences, and goals. Awareness of and access to palliative care interventions align with the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association mission. The purposes of this policy statement are to provide background on the importance of palliative care as it pertains to patients with advanced cardiovascular disease and stroke and their families and to make recommendations for policy decisions.

Public health imperative of the 21st century: innovations in palliative care systems, services, and supports to improve health and well-being of older americans.

A primary aim of federal aging and health policy must be promoting innovations in palliative care systems, services, and supports that improve the experience of growing old in America. Older adults must contend today with increasing burden over the life course often as the result of life-limiting chronic pain and chronic illnesses as well as social and economic factors beyond their control. These burdens are frequently shared with unpaid family caregivers who provide significant uncompensated medical care and social support to their loved ones.

Relationship between pain and chronic illness among seriously ill older adults: expanding role for palliative social work.

Confronting the issue of pain among chronically ill older adults merits serious attention in light of mounting evidence that pain in this population is often undertreated or not treated at all (Institute of Medicine, 2011 ). The relationship between pain and chronic illness among adults age 50 and over was examined in this study through the use of longitudinal data from the University of Michigan Health and Retirement Study, sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and the Social Security Administration. Findings suggested positive associations between pain and chronic disease, pain and multimorbidity, as well as an inverse association between pain and education.

Health care costs in end-of-life and palliative care: the quest for ethical reform.

Health reform in the United States must address both access to medical services and universal insurance coverage, as well as health care cost containment. Uncontrolled health care costs will undermine improvements in access and coverage in the long-run, and will also be detrimental to other important social programs and goals. Accordingly, the authors offer an ethical perspective on health care cost control in the context of end-of-life and palliative care, an area considered by many to be a principal candidate for cost containment.

Key role of social work in effective communication and conflict resolution process: Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) Program in New York and shared medical decision making at the end of life.

In this article, the authors review the development of the Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) Program and recent landmark legislation in New York State in the context of advance care planning and shared medical decision making at the end of life. Social workers are central health care professionals in working with patients, families, practitioners, health care agents, and surrogates in the health systems and in the communication and conflict resolution process that is integral to health care decision making. The critical importance of ethics and end-of-life training and education for social workers is also addressed.

Phenomenology of pain and suffering at the end of life: a humanistic perspective in gerontological health and social work.

In this article, the author examines the phenomenology of pain and suffering and the fundamentally social nature of living with serious illness for older adults at life's end. She focuses on three concerns in gerontological health and social work: developing a phenomenological account of lived experiences of pain and suffering; articulating a humanistic phenomenological perspective on the axiological and ethical dimensions of pain and suffering; and exploring a phenomenological approach to a more humanistic, person-centered social work practice with older adults in end-of-life and palliative care. The contribution that the author makes through this article is in elaborating a humanistic framework for understanding agency, obligation, and ethical choice in end-of-life decision making.