Ethnic inequality in place of death
12th January 2026
Most people prefer not to die in hospital, yet it remains the most common place of death in England and Wales. Previous research shows that people from ethnic minority backgrounds are less likely to access specialist palliative care and more likely to use emergency hospital services at the end of life. However, it has been hard to study ethnic differences in where people die because ethnicity is not usually recorded on death certificates. (is this true currently or just historically)
This study used high-quality self-reported ethnicity data from the national Census, linked to death records for a 1% sample of the population who died between 2011 and 2017. Researchers looked at whether people died in hospital compared to other places (home, hospice, or care home) and explored whether differences were explained by age, location, social factors, or cause of death.
The study included 34,230 people. Overall, nearly half (49.5%) died in hospital and most ethnic minority groups had a higher rate of deaths in hospital than White British people. After adjusting for age, geography, deprivation, or cause of death some ethnic minority groups were still significantly more likely to die in hospital than White British people. For example, the rate of death in hospital was about 48% higher for Bangladeshi men and was also higher for Pakistani and Indian men and women.
The findings show clear ethnic inequalities in place of death that have not previously been described for England. This raises important questions about whether these differences reflect inequities in access to care, or differences in needs or preferences. Improving the quality of ethnicity data in health records and understanding the experiences and needs of ethnic minority communities are key steps toward fairer end-of-life care.
Davies JM, Chua KC, Maddocks M, Murtagh FEM, Sleeman KE. Ethnic inequality in place of death: Analysis using ‘gold standard’ self-reported ethnicity data from the Census Longitudinal Study. Palliat Med. 2025 Dec 4:2692163251395455. doi: 10.1177/02692163251395455. Online ahead of print. PMID: 41342480. No abstract available.