Compassionate Cities

Imagine if whole communities - not simply a community's direct health services - really cared about its member's health and social well-being. Imagine if that care extended to the dying, death and losses experienced by everyone in that community. Imagine if "death" was an idea that went beyond the "death of the body" and came to include the deaths of identity and belonging as these endings apply to people living with dementia or the aftermath of sexual abuse, dispossession of indigenous or refugee peoples. Such community and policy frameworks partly do exist in the World Health Organization's "Healthy Cities" international programs, but they often do not include end-of-life care issues such as death, dying and loss. This book takes the idea of the Healthy City and extends these policy and practice ideas to include frequently overlooked end-of-life care experiences and concerns. Compassion is an idea that goes beyond "health" and "welfare" and embraces and promotes empathy and support as new forms of "health promotion." Beginning with an examination of the parallel histories of public health and end-of-life care the book moves to a critique of the current limits of both for human experiences of death, dying and loss. The theory and policy ideas of Healthy Cities are introduced and a comparison with Compassionate Cities policies made. Policies of Compassionate Cities are discussed alongside their sociological basis. The strengths and weaknesses of such large-scale programs are examined. The final sections of the book outline and summarize basic models of community development and action strategies for implementing a "Compassionate Cities" program. This is a book forpractitioners who want to include end-of-life care issues into their health promotion and community development practices. It is also a book for end-of-life care practitioners who want to include community development and health promotion ideas into their practice. For social sciences, pu

Allan Kellehear is Professor of Palliative Care, and Director of the Palliative Care Unit, at La Trobe University, Australia.

Acknowledgements Preface 1.The Social Roots of Organised Care for the Dying 2. Current Approaches to End-of-Life Care 3. Theoretical Foundations of Compassionate Cities 4. Policies of Compassionate Cities 5. The Social Character of Compassionate Cities 6. Threats to Compassionate Cities 7. Implementation: Making it Happen 8. Action Strategies 9. The Future: A Third Wave Public Health? Bibliography