Special Project

Last Acts, an initiative of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has selected ALTA

to spearhead the National Resource Center on Diversity in End-of-Life Care (NRCD), which seeks to avoid cultural misunderstandings. NRCD is an information and technical assistance resource for coalitions and community leaders reaching out to diverse populations. We provide information, materials, training and networking opportunities to improve end-of-life care for Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and others.  

NRCD works with coalitions and community-based organizations around the country to strengthen local efforts to reach minority audiences. In collaboration with the three Rallying Points Regional Resource Centers, we support community awareness efforts that explain how to reach diverse communities and encourage the development of community-based end-of-life care programs that are sensitive to a community’s multiracial and multicultural members.

A central theme of the NRCD is that health care systems and caregivers need to respect and respond to the cultural context of the terminally ill. NRCD provides information to consumers and health care professionals so that they understand and recommend care options that support compassionate care at the end of life for all. Hospital and hospice workers, home health-care aides, clergy and social workers are at the front lines of service delivery at the end-of life. Professional caregivers should have the cultural competencies that engender trust so that cultural misunderstandings between the caregiver and the patient and family regarding end-of-life beliefs and rituals will not cause pain. NRCD is working both to improve the cultural competency of caregivers and to educate diverse populations about the options available to them at the end of life.

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