The Global Institute of Psychosocial, Palliative and End-of-Life Care (GIPPEC), the Institute of Health Policy, Kings College London, the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and the Division of Palliative Medicine, University of Toronto; the European Palliative Care Research Centre, and the Princess Margaret Global Cancer Program are hosting Palliative Care, Culture and the Clinic.

This multi-disciplinary symposium will address the influence of culture and biomedicine on universal access to palliative care over three themes:

1. Models of integration and collaboration that have fostered or hindered universal access

- Successes and challenges of integration

- Implicit and explicit biases in resource allocation, clinical training and research

- Balance of attention to the disease, the symptoms, the person, and the social context

2. Status and recent shifts across cultures in stigma and attitudes to dying and death and to palliative care

- Societal

- Medical

- Health systems and government

3.The impact of the economic divide in both high and low income countries on access at the level of:

- Health policy

- Political and economic factors

- Decision-making and resource allocation

4. Solutions and new opportunities for collaboration across sectors in research, education, health policy, resource allocation, and clinical care to enhance universal access to high quality palliative