At the European Public Health Conference in Bilbao 10-13 November 2026 the EAPC Reference Group Public Health & Palliative Care (chaired by Libby Sallnow, Joachim Cohen) will co-organize a pre-conference titled PALL – Ensuring care until the end for everyone: palliative care as a public health priority together with the EUPHA Health Services Research Section and RAPHAEL project – IntegRAting a Palliative Care ApproacH for PAtients with HEart FaiLure.

Objectives
The pre-conference will aim to:

Present convincing arguments about why public health needs to be interested in palliative care as an issue of significance and why palliative care needs public health approaches.
Present and discuss inequalities in access to palliative and end-of-life care across Europe, including socioeconomic, geographical, disease-related differences and macro-level differences across welfare and care regimes.
Examine how palliative care need and quality can be measured and monitored at population and health systems level.
Present and discuss successful strategies for integration of palliative care into oncological and chronic disease pathways, with a specific focus on heart failure and on reducing inequities between people with cancer and those with non-cancer chronic conditions.
Use the RAPHAEL project to discuss practical barriers, facilitators and implementation strategies for integrating palliative care into routine chronic disease pathways.
Discuss ‘compassionate communities’ as a social response to serious illness, dying, caregiving and bereavement, complementary to health care services.
Identify priorities for research, policy and European collaboration on public health palliative care.