Children living with life-limiting illnesses in low-resource settings face significant gaps in access to quality palliative care, leading to unnecessary suffering and caregiver distress. This project aims to develop and evaluate scalable, culturally sensitive pediatric palliative care models tailored for Rwanda’s healthcare context. Using community-based participatory research, capacity-building, and digital health tools, the team will co-create sustainable solutions with healthcare providers and families. The findings will inform national policy and health system integration while providing a replicable model for other low-resource settings worldwide.

“I hope this research will catalyze a fundamental shift in how pediatric palliative care is understood, valued, and delivered in low-resource settings,” says Justin Baker, who is the chief of the Division of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care, Stanford University School of Medicine and a PI on the project. “At its core, the goal is to ensure that no child suffering from a serious illness—regardless of where they live—is left without the compassionate, comprehensive care they deserve.”

By developing and testing an innovative, community-integrated model in Rwanda, Baker and Ntizimira hope this work will not only improve the quality of life for children and their families locally, but also generate scalable, evidence-based strategies that can inform national policies and be adapted across sub-Saharan Africa and other underserved regions globally.

“Ultimately, I hope this research contributes to a broader global movement: one that positions palliative care as a core component of universal health coverage, centers the voices and needs of patients and families, and builds health systems that are more equitable, more responsive, and more humane,” says Baker.

Learn more about the project and Dr. Baker’s approach to global pediatric palliative care in this article.

Principal Investigators:

Justin Baker, MD – Chief, Division of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care, Stanford University School of Medicine

Christian Ntizimira, MD, MMsGHE – Executive Director, African Center for Research on End-of-Life Care (ACREOL), Stanford University School of Medicine

Funder:

Stanford Division of Quality of Life and Pediatric Palliative Care