Preparedness for Serious Illnesses: Impact of Ethnicity, Mistrust, Perceived Discrimination, and Health Communication

Achieving goal-concordant care: Formal and informal advance care planning for White, Black, and Hispanic older adults

INTRODUCTION

Advance care planning (ACP) aims to ensure that patients receive goal-concordant care (GCC), which is especially important for racially or ethnically minoritized populations at greater risk of poor end-of-life outcomes. However, few studies have evaluated the impact of advance directives (i.e., formal ACP) or goals-of-care conversations (i.e., informal ACP) on such care. This study aimed to examine the relationship between each of formal and informal ACP and goal-concordant end-of-life care among older Americans and to determine whether their impact differed between individuals identified as White, Black, or Hispanic.

METHODS

We conducted a retrospective cohort study using 2012-2018 data from the biennial Health and Retirement Study. We examined the relationships of interest using two, separate multivariable logistic regression models. Model 1 regressed a proxy report of GCC on formal and informal ACP and sociodemographic and health-related covariates. Model 2 added interaction terms between race/ethnicity and the two types of ACP.

RESULTS

Our sample included 2048 older adults. There were differences in the proportions of White, Black, and Hispanic decedents who received GCC (83.1%, 75.3%, and 71.3%, respectively, p < 0.001) and in the use of each type of ACP by racial/ethnic group. In model 1, informal compared with no informal ACP was associated with higher odds of GCC (adjusted odds ratio = 1.38 [95% confidence interval, 1.05-1.82]). In model 2, Black decedents who had formal ACP were more likely to receive GCC than those who did not, but there were no statistically significant differences between decedents of different racial/ethnic groups who had no ACP, informal ACP only, or both types of ACP.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results build on previous work by indicating the importance of incorporating goals-of-care conversations into routine healthcare for older adults and encouraging ACP usage among racially and ethnically minoritized populations who use ACP tools at lower rates.

End-of-Life Planning and the Influence of Socioeconomic Status among Black Americans: A Systematic Review

Purpose

The purpose of this systematic review is to explore end-of-life (EOL) care planning and the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) among people who identify as Black or African American.

Methods

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) were used to guide and inform this systematic review process. The following academic electronic databases with publications that reflected the interdisciplinary fields related to the research objective were searched APA PsycINFO, CINHAL, PubMed, Scopus, and Social Work Abstracts.

Results

After the authors conducted the search, 14 articles (from 13 studies) ultimately met the criteria for inclusion. The results substantiated significant concerns highlighted in previous literature regarding SES and its relation to EOL planning, but also revealed an absence of original work and interventions to increase engagement in EOL planning among Black and African American populations.

Conclusion

Black individuals deserve an equitable EOL experience. Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers need to move towards advocacy and action to meet this important need.

Parental communication satisfaction with the clinical team in the paediatric cardiac ICU

INTRODUCTION

Understanding parents' communication preferences and how parental and child characteristics impact satisfaction with communication is vital to mitigate communication challenges in the cardiac ICU.

METHODS

This cross-sectional survey was conducted from January 2019 to March 2020 in a paediatric cardiac ICU with parents of patients admitted for at least two weeks. Family satisfaction with communication with the medical team was measured using the Communication Assessment Tool for Team settings. Clinical characteristics were collected via Epic, Pediatric Cardiac Critical Care Consortium local entry and Society for Thoracic Surgeons Congenital Heart Surgery Databases. Associations between communication score and parental mood, stress, perceptions of clinical care, and demographic characteristics along with patient demographic and clinical characteristics were examined. Multivariable ordinal models were conducted with characteristics significant in bivariate analysis.

RESULTS

In total, 93 parents of 84 patients (86% of approached) completed surveys. Parents were 63% female and 70% White. Seventy per cent of patients were <6 months old at admission, 25% had an extracardiac abnormality, and 80% had a cardiac surgery this admission. Parents of children with higher pre-surgical risk of mortality scores (OR 2.875; 95%CI 1.076-7.678), presence of surgical complications (72 [63.0, 75.0] vs. 64 [95%CI 54.6, 73] (p = 0.0247)), and greater satisfaction with care in the ICU (r = 0.93922; p < 0.0001) had significantly higher communication scores.

CONCLUSION

These findings can prepare providers for scenarios with higher risk for communication challenges and demonstrate the need for further investigation into interventions that reduce parental anxiety and improve communication for patients with unexpected clinical trajectories.

Black and white proxy experiences and perceptions that influence advanced dementia care in nursing homes: The ADVANCE study

BACKGROUND

Regional, facility, and racial variability in intensity of care provided to nursing home (NH) residents with advanced dementia is poorly understood.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Assessment of Disparities and Variation for Alzheimer's disease NH Care at End of life (ADVANCE) is a multisite qualitative study of 14 NHs from four hospital referral regions providing varied intensity of advanced dementia care based on tube-feeding and hospital transfer rates. This report explored the perceptions and experiences of Black and White proxies (N = 44) of residents with advanced dementia to elucidate factors driving these variations. Framework analyses revealed themes and subthemes within the following a priori domains: understanding of advanced dementia and care decisions, preferences related to end-of-life care, advance care planning, decision-making about managing feeding problems and acute illness, communication and trust in NH providers, support, and spirituality in decision-making. Matrix analyses explored similarities/differences by proxy race. Data were collected from June 1, 2018 to July 31, 2021.

RESULTS

Among 44 proxies interviewed, 19 (43.1%) were Black, 36 (81.8%) were female, and 26 (59.0%) were adult children of residents. In facilities with the lowest intensity of care, Black and White proxies consistently reported having had previous conversations with residents about wishes for end-of-life care and generally better communication with providers. Black proxies held numerous misconceptions about the clinical course of advanced dementia and effectiveness of treatment options, notably tube-feeding and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Black and White proxies described mistrust of NH staff but did so towards different staffing roles. Religious and spiritual beliefs commonly thought to underlie preferences for more intense care among Black residents, were rarely, but equally mentioned by race.

CONCLUSIONS

This report refuted commonly held assumptions about religiosity and spirituality as drivers of racial variations in advanced dementia care and revealed several actionable facility-level factors, which may help reduce these variations.

Racism as the fundamental cause of ethnic inequities in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: A theoretical framework and empirical exploration using the UK Household Longitudinal Study

Ethnic inequities in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy have been reported in the United Kingdom (UK), and elsewhere. Explanations have mainly focused on differences in the level of concern about side effects, and in lack of trust in the development and efficacy of vaccines. Here we propose that racism is the fundamental cause of ethnic inequities in vaccine hesitancy. We introduce a theoretical framework detailing the mechanisms by which racism at the structural, institutional, and interpersonal level leads to higher vaccine hesitancy among minoritised ethnic groups. We then use data from Wave 6 of the UK Household Longitudinal Study COVID-19 Survey (November to December 2020) to empirically examine these pathways, operationalised into institutional, community, and individual-level factors. We use the Karlson-Holm-Breen method to formally compare the relationship between ethnicity and vaccine hesitancy once age and gender, sociodemographic variables, and institutional, community, and individual-level factors are accounted for. Based on the Average Partial Effects we calculate the percentage of ethnic inequities explained by each set of factors. Findings show that institutional-level factors (socioeconomic position, area-level deprivation, overcrowding) explained the largest part (42%) of the inequity in vaccine hesistancy for Pakistani or Bangladeshi people, and community-level factors (ethnic density, community cohesion, political efficacy, racism in the area) were the most important factors for Indian and Black groups, explaining 35% and 15% of the inequity, respectively. Our findings suggest that if policy intervened on institutional and community-level factors - shaped by structural and institutional racism - considerable success in reducing ethnic inequities might be achieved.