Abstract:
Within the dominant palliative care discourse, it is assumed that dying ‘at home’ is preferred. An economically inspired discourse additionally posits that limiting hospital use at the end of life of older people can result in substantial and justifiable cost savings. The public health challenges related to place of dying include determining at what care settings end-of-life care resources, support, and strategies should be targeted, and developing general health care and specific end-of-life care policies with the potential to influence place of death patterns. By providing robust statistical descriptions of the place of death for older people across various countries and continents, this chapter addresses that challenge. However, the chapter also promotes an understanding of the context within which these statistics need to be interpreted and challenges some of the normative assumptions around the meanings of place, and the nature of choice of place, at the end of life.