Enhancing the wellbeing of refugees living with advanced life-limiting illness in high-income resettlement countries: A systematic review

This episode features Dr Heidi Merrington (School of Public Health, The University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia) and Professor Angela Dawson (School of Public Health, The University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia). What is already known about the topic? In high-income countries, refugees experience barriers to accessing health care that may delay palliative care seeking. Refugees' cultural backgrounds and experiences of trauma, loss and grief during forced displacement shape health, wellbeing and expectations of care. Evidence is needed to inform palliative care services and approaches to supporting resettled refugees and their families. What this paper adds This review demonstrates the dearth of research focused on resettled refugees living with advanced life-limiting illness and their families in high-income countries. The review highlighted the importance of assets such as resilience, sense of identity and belonging, community connections, social support and social capital, for enhancing the wellbeing of refugees and their families during end-of-life care and bereavement. Refugees' cultural identity, death literacy and experiences of grief influence engagement with palliative care staff and decision-making about end-of-life care approaches. Implications for practice, theory or policy Community networks play an important role in end-of-life care and bereavement support for refugees and their families. Participation of diverse groups of refugees in co-designed research is needed to build an evidence base to inform palliative care service approaches and develop community-based end-of-life care interventions that strengthen assets that enhance refugee wellbeing. Future studies should focus on refugees as a distinct group compared to migrants and the general population in high-income resettlement countries. Full paper available from: If you would like to record a podcast about your published (or accepted) Palliative Medicine paper, please contact Dr Amara Nwosu: a.nwosu@lancaster.ac.uk

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Enhancing the wellbeing of refugees living with advanced life-limiting illness in high-income resettlement countries: A systematic review is an episode from SAGE Palliative Medicine & Chronic Care by Sage Publications.

This episode is 04:52 long.

This episode was published on Aug 18, 2025.

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