Marketing Palliative Care
This article examines why palliative care remains inaccessible to most persons with serious illness, citing the lack of a successful social marketing platform directed to consumers as a primary reason. It argues that the growth of palliative care has been hindered by the failure of palliative care professionals to consider the basic principles of social marketing in early language and messaging. The article first provides a historical background on the development of modern hospice care and of palliative care before turning to a discussion of how palliative care has failed to generate widespread public support and engagement. It then considers how early messaging by palliative care professionals hindered referrals to palliative care by other health-care professionals and concludes by explaining how recent attempts to use principles of audience research and targeted social marketing have led to the rapid spread and uptake of palliative care services in the United States.