Reframing global palliative care advocacy for the sustainable development goal era: A qualitative study of the views of international palliative care experts

Context The World Health Assembly Palliative Care Resolution in 2014 and the inclusion of palliative care within the sustainable development goals raised optimism that palliative care would no longer be a peripheral aspect of global health. However, no funding, accountability measures, or indicators for palliative care development accompanied these policy developments. This risks health actors continuing to prioritize the attainment of better known target-driven aspects of health care.

Objectives To explore the attitudes of international palliative care experts regarding how the future development of palliative care can be accelerated.

Methods About 16 international palliative care experts were interviewed for their epistemic expertise. Participants were interviewed face to face or via Skype. Interviews were recorded, transcribed nonverbatim, and analyzed using a thematic approach (NVivo).

Results Participants strongly supported the rollout of national palliative care policies around the world for two reasons: to ensure palliative care attracts national funding streams and to attract global funding for palliative care. The absence of a global indicator for palliative care development was considered a severe impediment to the inclusion of palliative care within global efforts toward universal health care. Advocacy partnerships, using human rights approaches with economic frames, were considered the most effective methods of influencing policymakers.

Conclusion Palliative care represents a value proposition that is not currently being maximized by advocacy. Advocates should consider palliative care developmentally, focusing on key asks for development and consider how palliative care can contribute to other international development priorities, in particular poverty reduction.