New Program Will Bring Advance Care Planning to African-American Faith Communities

Richard Payne, MD

Participating Congregations in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Philadelphia and West Palm Beach 

African Americans die at excessive levels from chronic disease1 yet use only eight percent of hospice services nationally.2 Advance care planning – the process of communicating with a healthcare agent about the care they would want if unable to speak for themselves – and increased use of hospice services could greatly improve quality of life for one of the most vulnerable populations in America, elderly African Americans. 

A new project funded by the John and Wauna Harman Foundation and others will enable the Center for Practical Bioethics to implement a two-year program working with African American faith communities and community collaborators (i.e., hospices) in four cities to increase advance care planning and use of hospice services. Cities include Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas,  Kansas City, Philadelphia, and West Palm Beach.

The rationale for the program is rooted in American history and culture. Many African Americans distrust our healthcare system – which once practiced segregation, involuntary sterilization and unethical research practices – and are understandably reluctant to engage in a process that they perceive could put them at greater risk of being underserved. African Americans are also markedly more religious than the U.S. population and more reliant on faith leaders to help them make healthcare decisions. 

The project, launched on December 1, 2015, includes four phases:

Phase I – Congregations in targeted cities will recruit two-to-three Advance Care Planning (ACP) Ambassadors to commit to a six-month advance care planning program. Project faculty and staff from the Center for Practical Bioethics and partners will hold a four-hour training session for ACP Ambassadors at the Samuel Dewitt Proctor Leadership and Lay Conference in Houston on February 15-18, 2016.

Phase II – ACP Ambassadors will design and implement a project to facilitate and complete advance care planning documents in their congregations. Faculty and staff will provide coaching and advice on how to teach their congregants about advance care planning, encourage them to discuss their end-of-life care with their loved ones, and assist them in completing advance care planning documents.

Phase III – Faculty and staff will work with ACP Ambassadors and their community collaborators to organize a one-day Crossing Over Jordan Conference in November 2016, where  the Ambassadors will share their project design and outcomes with the community. 

Phase IV – This phase consists primarily of post-project tracking. Faculty and staff will develop and conduct ongoing surveys of participating congregations for one year following the conclusion of local advance care planning projects to track the project’s impact.

For more information about the project, please contact Leslie McNolty, Program Associate, lmcnolty@practicalbioethics.org or 816-979-1394.

1 http://www.cdc.gov/minorityhealth/populations/REMP/black.html

2 National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s Facts and Figures: Hospice Care in America, 2014 Edition, p. 5.

Richard Payne, MD, is the John B. Francis Chair at the Center for Practical Bioethics and the Esther Colliflower Professor of Medicine and Divinity at Duke Divinity School, Duke University.