Place of death and end-of-life care

This chapter describes where people die in various European, Asian, and North-American countries, and which factors influence place of death. Generally, terminal patients and their informal caregivers prefer death to occur at home, and there is ample evidence that dying at home can contribute to a better death compared with dying in an institution. In reality, however, only a minority of people eventually die at home. Knowing which people die where and which factors influence this is essential in developing rational and appropriate public health policies that support the preference of many to die at home. The systematic description and cross-national comparison in the chapter is instructive in this context as it allows the identification of factors (e.g., the organization of care provision) facilitating home death.