2021/07/01 by Michelle Chang
Health Professions · Medicine · Psychology · #Family and Patient Care in Intensive Care Units #Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health #Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues
paper · doi:10.2105/ajph.2021.306379
openalex publication_date 2021/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The downstream effects of these large-scale disruptions in grieving rituals may be persistent and affect future generations through higher health care costs, mental health burdens, loss of community and family supports, and stunted productivity.1 More immediately, bereaved persons may suffer distress arising from survivor's guilt as well as the effects of prolonged and traumatic grief.2 Creating space for communal expressions of grief is thus central to the public health needs ofthe present generation. Even young adults are attending death cafes to process the premature deaths of others their age.4 Hospitals and nursing schools have adopted these spaces to prevent burnout and share resources on palliative care as health care workers navigate their own losses while taking on caregiver roles with patients.5 Health care providers experienced unprecedented deaths in a short period oftime in the early days of COVID19. Social critiques of ways in which death is handled by the media, our death determination practices, and the practice of medicine can leave some individuals feelingunresolved grief,and some death cafe participants feel a responsibility to contextualize their grief within current failings.7 For example, a woman whose disabled grandfather died after being denied medical care asked in one death cafe why some lives are deemed more dispensable than others.