Literature Review

End-of-life care behind bars: regular reviews of articles and reports on key issues in prison hospice and palliative care.End-of-Life Care Behind Bars - A Periodic Literature Search; September 2026 issue Highlights: Prison palliative care and compassionate release should be treated as interconnected rather than competing mechanisms; the constitutional crisis of end-of-life care for incarcerated individuals; prison officers matter in end-of-life care; community hospice engagement in end-of-life care in prisons; person-first language in correctional healthcare – two perspectives; critical reappraisal of policy and practice in correctional healthcare; conducting ethical health research in prisons

Health and health care access among Afghan refugee women in the United StatesJAMA Network Open; by Nazineen Kandahari, Nilufar N. Kayhani, Fareha Moulana Zada, Zahra Kayhani, Zarin Noor, Nicholas Nelson, Susan L. Ivey; 8/26Afghans are one of the world’s largest refugee populations. Afghan women face compounded health risks due to sociocultural restrictions, low literacy, forced displacement, and limited health care access, yet little is known about their experiences with health care after resettlement in the US. In this qualitative study of 23 Afghan women residing in the US who shared their experiences accessing health care, key barriers included sociocultural constraints on women’s autonomy, inadequate interpretation services, culturally insensitive health care, intergenerational stigma surrounding sexual and reproductive health knowledge and care, and mental health challenges. Structural barriers produced mistrust in and miscommunication with clinicians and led to use of home remedies. These findings suggest a need for health care interventions that are sensitive to sociocultural contexts and immigration histories to address the needs of Afghan refugee women in the US.

Sunday newsletters focus on headlines and top read stories of the last week (in order) - enjoy!

PHarmacist avoidance or reductions in medical costs in PALLiative care inpatient services: PHARM-PALLJournal of Palliative Medicine; by Celena Wilson, Jennifer Ku; 8/26Inpatient palliative care (PC) pharmacists have been shown to improve clinical and team outcomes. To quantify the cost avoidance (CA) associated with a full-time inpatient PC pharmacist based on clinical interventions. Conclusions: A PC pharmacist may help avoid significant health care costs, particularly in the areas of deprescribing, identifying untreated indications, and using PC expertise to make therapeutic recommendations.

Advance care planning in an urban hospital: Sustainability and growth in documenting care plans over four-yearsAmerican Journal of Hospice & Palliative Care; by Khadeja Kausar, Edward Coffield, Sampath Gopalan, Regina Tarkovsky, Sarah Egan, Robert A Press, John Marshall; 8/26Many acute care patients are admitted without advance care plans (AC-Plans) which may result in patients receiving care misaligned with their preferences. Accordingly, ACP [advance care planning] is needed within hospitals, however, implementation barriers exist. [In this study] the hospital's ACP program components included: primary palliative care, simulation-based training, and ACP and AC-Plan training and education. The percentage of patients with ACPs at discharge increased from 4.4% to 19.1% from the first to fourth program year. The odds of having an AC-Plan at discharge in years 2, three, and four were 3.44, ... 5.87, ... and 8.97 ... times higher than the odds of having one during the first program year. The growth and sustainability of the hospital's ACP program demonstrates that barriers to ACP within hospitals can be overcome and successful programs implemented.

Digital Deception: Survey Bots and the Ethics of Data IntegrityEthics & Human Research; by W Frank-Ito, LA Eldridge, J Matthews; 9/26The rapid growth of artificial intelligence and automated systems has significantly impacted digital survey-based research, particularly when recruitment is conducted via social media platforms. This case study details the erosion of data integrity in a 2025 follow-up survey, originally designed to replicate a successful 2021 study. Despite implementing increasingly sophisticated antifraud mechanisms such as CAPTCHA, IP geo-restrictions, and behavioral validation, survey bots repeatedly infiltrated the study, rendering the dataset unusable. This highlights a critical tension between broad digital accessibility and the vulnerability of online research to fraud. Moreover, the use of financial incentives to participate in research, while effective in increasing response rates, was found to amplify bot activity and raise ethical dilemmas surrounding compensation and data quality... The authors call for the urgent development of fieldwide standards, institutional support, and robust fraud prevention strategies to preserve the methodological and ethical integrity of digital research.

[UK] A policy scoping review of how ‘Hospitals at Home’ can and could support people with dementia Age & Ageing; by Anthony Zheng Wang, Anita Wong, Nathan Davies, Sevim Hodge, Elizabeth L Sampson, Victoria Vickerstaff, Kate Walters, Catherine J Evans, Mark James Rawle, Jane Ward, Simon Conroy, Bastien Genet, Claudia Cooper; 8/26People with dementia are often hospitalised due to comorbidities and superimposed delirium and have poorer outcomes in hospital compared to people without dementia, especially among under-served groups. Hospital at Home (HaH) schemes could reduce these inequalities by facilitating care in a familiar home environment that offers similar outcomes to acute hospital care with lower risks of harms. We developed three themes: (i) benefits of HaH for people with dementia, including more person-centred care and familiar treatment environments; (ii) how HaH can be inclusively designed for people with dementia, accommodating needs and mitigating concerns over digital exclusion and safety; and (iii) the critical role of family carers in enabling HaH, including potential carer burden. Future policies should drive consistent inclusive eligibility criteria and processes for ensuring continuity with primary care, dementia care as a HaH staff core competency.

The conversations Gloria Steinem started PressReader, The Boston Globe, Boston, MA; by Wendy Kaminer; 9/5/26 Among many other top­ics, she offered wis­dom on aging and grief. Gloria Steinem, who died Wed­nes­day [9/2], at 92, will be remembered for her advocacy for women’s rights and her determ­in­a­tion to chal­lenge con­ven­tions (“At Smith and bey­ond, her words resound,” Page A1, Sept. 4). She spent much of her life chal­len­ging us to talk openly about sub­jects that were often ignored, among them, par­tic­u­larly in her later years, aging and grief. She cel­eb­rated aging when many tried to res­ist it. ... She did not treat grief as a taboo topic either.

Federal judge rejects bid to block Illinois’ ‘Medical Aid in Dying’ law days before it takes effectWTTW Public Broadcasting System, Chicago, IL; by Matt Masterson; 9/10/26 A federal judge has denied a motion that sought to block a controversial new Illinois law that will allow terminally ill adults to take life-ending medication, just days before that law is set to take effect. In a 25-page ruling Thursday, U.S. District Judge John Tharp rejected a request for a preliminary injunction that would’ve halted the state’s new End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act, or EOLA, from being implemented beginning Saturday.

Former VA nurse charged with intentionally abusing hospice patient News 8 Now, La Crosse/Toma, WI; by Sam Shilts; 9/10/26 A former registered nurse at the Tomah Veterans Affairs Medical Center faces a felony charge after prosecutors say she intentionally removed oxygen from a dying hospice patient, causing him great bodily harm. Beth Marie Holtz, 53, of New Berlin, was charged Wednesday in Monroe County court with intentionally abusing a patient causing great bodily harm. An arrest warrant was issued the same day. According to the criminal complaint, the incident occurred Aug. 17, 2025, involving a 75-year-old patient who had been admitted to hospice with pulmonary fibrosis and had a medical order for continuous oxygen supply.