Church Spurs Parishioners to Plan for Illness and Death

Rev. Gloria White-Hammond at Boston's Bethel AME Church wants to get all of her parishioners to write down their end-of-life medical wishes and talk about them with their doctors and families, reports Kaiser Health News . A recent Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) survey calculated that nationally, only 33 percent of Americans have documented their end-of-life wishes, while just 19 percent of African-American adults 65 or older have done so, versus 65 percent of whites. Furthermore, older black adults are 50 percent as likely as whites to have named someone to make medical decisions for them if they become incapacitated. A second KFF survey determined blacks are more likely than whites to say living as long as possible is "extremely important," and that the U.S. medical system significantly underemphasizes increasing longevity. White-Hammond has asked attendees to study the "Five Wishes" end-of-life planning document, and over the past two years she has introduced more than 100 parishioners to the document at monthly workshops. White-Hammond says people often hit a snag when filling out the second wish, which asks whether they want life support in cases of permanent brain damage and other situations they may be unfamiliar with. White-Hammond cites mistrust of the medical establishment as a key reason African Americans are less likely to write down their end-of-life wishes and more reluctant to terminate life support.