Death Education as a Public Health Issue

In 1998, Allan Kellehear established Australia’s first academic palliative care unit devoted to a public health approach to end-of-life care. In academic terms, this palliative care emphasized the application of health promotion, community development, and death education to clinical services in palliative care. This chapter outlines the case for the need to make death education a public health priority, taking its place alongside all other public health campaigns that contribute to national health and well-being. It argues that death education is both a necessary professional responsibility and community action if we are to successfully tackle the increasing and frequently anxiety-inducing national death-related issues from euthanasia, palliative care, or the determination of death to aging, dementia, or organ donation. There are at least nine good reasons to implement death education as part of a wider public health approach to national health and well-being. The chapter describes these reasons briefly.