You are here

  • Home
  • Online First
  • Silenced voices: addressing racial bias in palliative care in Afro-Caribbean communities during the COVID-19 pandemic

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Commentary
Silenced voices: addressing racial bias in palliative care in Afro-Caribbean communities during the COVID-19 pandemic
  1. Vittoria Sorice1,2,
  2. Gerri Mortimore3
  1. 1School of Nursing and Midwifery - College of Health, Psychology and Social Care, University of Derby, Derby, Derbyshire, UK
  2. 2Emergency Medicine, Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, UK
  3. 3Associate Professor in Advanced Clinical Practice, University of Derby, Derby, Derbyshire, UK
  1. Correspondence to Vittoria Sorice, School of Nursing and Midwifery - College of Health, Psychology and Social Care, University of Derby, Derby, Derbyshire, UK; vittoria.sorice{at}nhs.net

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebnurs-2023-103852

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Commentary on: Dewhurst F, Tomkow L, Poole M, McLellan E, Kunonga TP, Damisa E, Stowell M, Todd C, Hanratty B. Unrepresented, unheard and discriminated against: a qualitative exploration of relatives’ and professionals’ views of palliative care experiences of people of African and Caribbean descent during the COVID-19 pandemic. Palliat Med. 2023 Oct;37(9):1447–1460. doi: 10.1177/02692163231188156. Epub 2023 Aug 23.

    Implications for practice and research

    • Enhance healthcare diversity representation and train practitioners to provide culturally sensitive, personalised care that promotes equity in practice.

    • Further research, drawing on Critical Race Theory (CRT), would be valuable to identify healthcare equity concerns for minority populations, mitigate bias and foster social engagement and workforce diversification.

    Context

    Recognising racism as a fundamentally complex, global and historical phenomenon pervading all aspects of society, becomes necessary to address such concerns across all sectors, including healthcare.1 2 Overt and covert racial bias infiltrate the healthcare context, impacting patient–clinician rapport, communication, trust and overall treatment outcomes.3 The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated communication issues …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @vittoriasor

    • Competing interests This editorial reflects the views of the author(s) at the time of writing and not necessarily those of the University of Derby, the Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust or any other affiliated organisation.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.