Background Resources

The Palliative Care Advocacy Toolkit

Palliative care is a woefully neglected component of health-care worldwide. Tens of millions of people suffer unnecessarily each year due to lack of access to palliative care and pain relief, especially amongst the most vulnerable of populations. While the Commission Report made strides to uncover this access abyss and provide recommendations for health system strengthening, much work remains for advocates to provide adequate access to palliative care globally.

The Advocacy Toolkit consists of:

  1. Brief Report Overview
  2. Video presentation of the Report, given by Dr. Felicia Knaul
  3. Policy Brief Template
  4. Country Data Sheet
  5. Fact Sheets
  6. Advocacy Wall Map
  7. The Miami DeclarAction

Report Overview

A detailed summary of the report's conclusions and recommendations presenting the evidence base and key data to inform national policy- and decision-makers in a digestible manner.

Overview of The Lancet Commission Report 

Policy Brief Template

This brief is designed to serve as a guide for national advocates with country-specific data on the burden of serious health-related suffering and the cost of the Essential Package, using the data and tools developed by the Lancet Commission. If you would like a brief generated for a specific country to assist you with your advocacy, please email our team. The brief is available in Spanish upon request.

Policy Brief Examples:

Country Data Sheet

Please refer to the Country Data Sheet for country-specific data on the burden of serious health-related suffering and the need for palliative care.

Country Data Sheet

Fact Sheets

Advocacy Wall Map 

Map of palliative care need in the world
Distributed opioid morphine-equivalent (morphine in mg/patient in need of palliative care, average 2010–13), and estimated percentage of need that is met for the health conditions most associated with serious health-related suffering.

Miami DeclarAction

The Miami DeclarAction is a document of commitments and asks for global collective action to transition health systems to promote dignity in life and death, written and adopted at the Report launch on April 5-6 2018 in collaboration with global and regional palliative care civil society organizations in attendance, and published as a Lancet commentary following the Report launch. 

Literature Reviews

Bereavement Counselling and the Role of Religion: A summary of literatures on bereavement of counselling and the role of religion, especially around issues of palliative care and pain relief 

This review presents 19 articles on the subject of bereavement counseling and role of religion. Each article is accompanied by the abstract and the analysis. 

Contact Us

For comments or inquiries regarding the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Palliative Care and Pain Relief, please email the team.