News and Events

2005 Media Releases

IMPROVING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF DEATH AND LOSS

Leading Australian sociologist in the field of death and loss, Professor Allan Kellehear, has produced another book of major significance to public health, not only in Australia but to all countries.

Allan Kellehear is Professor of Palliative Care at La Trobe University. His new book Compassionate Cities: Public health and end-of-life care, is published by Routledge in Great Britain.

The book is a critique of the deficiencies of current public health understanding of health and lifestyle as well as an alternative model of practice that serves to address those deficiencies.

It links palliative, bereavement and aged care with issues as diverse as religious tolerance, refugee and indigenous dispossession, and third world politics to sketch a new way of viewing end-of-life care as a public health issue for the 21st century.

The book was written for policy-makers and health and community practitioners who would like to include end-of-life care issues – death, dying or loss - into their future analyses or practices. It is also a book for end-of-life care practitioners - academics or students of palliative, bereavement or aged care - who seek to include community development and health promotion into their future analyses or practices.

In the preface to his book, Professor Kellehear says that death and loss continue to be misunderstood despite being the most universal and routine human experiences.

‘For too long we have viewed death as the enemy of health when in fact it was illness and disease that properly occupied that place,’ he said.

‘We often identify death as a threat to, or a failure of, public health policies and initiatives. But this too is untrue. The aim of all health care has always been to prevent premature death and unnecessary harm and to promote feelings of well being.

‘In so far as death creates additional harm beyond itself, that impact is a necessary target for all good public health scholarship and practice. End-of-life care, in all its endlessly diverse expressions in daily life, should be the serious subject of public health investigation, policy and practice.’

Professor Kellehear says the purpose of his latest book is to alert and help reorient the public health sector in particular to this universal set of human experiences.

His book discusses a range of aspects of what Professor Kellehear calls ‘compassionate cities’, including their theoretical foundations, policies, social characters and potential threats to them.

Based on the World Health Organisation’s idea of the ‘Healthy City’ Professor Kellehear’s model of the ‘Compassionate City’ attempts to integrate death and loss into our everyday consciousness, academic analyses and future professional practices to enhance our future health and social wellbeing.

For further information:

Please contact Professor Allan Kellehear, Tel: (03) 9285 5259 or La Trobe University Media and Publications Unit, Tel: (03) 9479 2316.