Complexities and challenges in public health palliative care research

This chapter explores the challenges and complexities of public health palliative care research. The rapid development of public health palliative care research over the last decades foretells a whole new domain of research and policy in end of life care. This chapter reviews what the public health approach to palliative care entails and suggests appropriate research designs that can be used to develop and evaluate public health palliative care studies. Furthermore, it provides an overview of how observational, experimental, and change-oriented designs have been used in public health palliative care research. Finally, it explores what complexity means in public health palliative care research and what particular sources of complexity one may encounter in the research experience.