Welcome to the HEAL Project!

Our goal is to unravel the complex factors that influence end-of-life care policies and how these affect the care quality that individuals receive in their final days. 

We are especially interested in racial disparities in the last days of our lives. Black patients often face harsher end-of-life experiences. They tend to endure more pain, undergo more aggressive treatments, and are more likely to spend their last moments in a hospital setting. They also report lower satisfaction with the care they receive and carry a heavier financial load during this challenging time. Our project seeks to shed light on the layers of factors, including these larger systemic elements, that lead to uneven policy effects and their subsequent impact on the quality of end-of-life care.

By gaining a deeper understanding of these issues, we can move towards more equitable healthcare solutions for everyone’s final chapter.

Watch this video to learn more about the HEAL Project.

Our Partners

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Funder

RWJF is a leading national philanthropy dedicated to taking bold leaps to transform health in our lifetime. To get there, we must work to dismantle structural racism and other barriers to health. Through funding, convening, advocacy, and evidence-building, we work side-by-side with communities, practitioners, and institutions to achieve health equity faster and pave the way, together, to a future where health is no longer a privilege, but a right. Learn More

Tennessee Justice Center

Community Partner

The mission of the Tennessee Justice Center is to use the law to advance economic, racial, and social justice by relentlessly working for and with Tennesseans seeking better lives for themselves and their neighbors. Learn More

Vanderbilt University Center for Research on Inequality and Health

Partner

The Vanderbilt Center for Research on Inequality and Health conducts cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary research to understand the causes and consequences of health-related inequalities. The center brings together deep scholarly strengths in population health science; LGBTQ+ health policy; gun violence; and economic and social inequality—and explores how they impact health. Learn More