Rethinking Death Education as Part of Public Health Policy

Abstract

Death and dying are still taboo subjects in today's society. In most western countries, people die mostly in hospitals, surrounded by health professionals and high technology, but with no real humanisation of care. This transfer of death from the home to hospitals, which began in the 1960s of the last century, has brought social and cultural consequences for the way we deal with the end of life. We will have to save the work of some experts, like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004), to consider the need for death education. Based on the work of this paradigmatic author and other studies over time, we present a set of proposals for implementing death education as part of public health policy.