Jahan Shapnam is a research assistant with REHPA, The Danish Knowledge Centre for Rehabilitation and Palliative Care. This project consists of two substudies.

The purpose of substudy 1 is to provide documentation on existing knowledge of South Asian elderly immigrants with life-threatening diseases and illnesses in general, the experiences of relatives and health care professionals with palliative care in private homes, and how culture and health perceptions affect the availability of health care. This is a systematic bibliometric study.

The focus of substudy 2 is to examine the prospects, experiences and accesses of municipal palliative care in private homes from the perspective of older South Asian citizens with life-threatening diseases and illness in general, relatives and health care professionals. This study will be conducted as interviews with older South Asian citizens (60+) with life-threatening diseases and illnesses in general, interviews with relatives, and with professional home carers if the older citizen receives home care. The participants will be residents in Brøndby, Gladsaxe, Høje-Taastrup and Frederiksberg.

The result will be a contribution to the know-how on municipal palliative action to benefit older immigrants from South Asia and their families. The know-how will contribute to redress inequality in palliation, first in securing access for decisionmakers and health care professionals to culture-specific knowledge of this group, knowledge which is likely to be applicable to other immigrant groups. Second in contributing to new ways of communication and how to offer municipal palliation to older immigrants and their families.

During the project the focus has shifted from South Asian informants to non-western patients. The project will be a part of a Ph.D. thesis expected to be finished in May 2023.