Research Projects

The Australian Centre for Health Law Research (ACHLR) undertakes a broad range of research projects relating to the law at end of life. Research collaborators include government, health and legal professionals, the health services sector, other universities and non-government organisations and the community. ACHLR aims to translate its research into change that has real impact and makes a difference to the community.

Current research projects

• Dying in Pain
• Effective decision making support for people with cognitive disability
• Enhancing community knowledge and engagement with law at the end of life
• Futile treatment at the end of life: legal, policy, sociological and economic perspectives
• Investigating the coronial determination of suicide as a category of death
• Centre academics are also undertaking a number of research projects through the National Health and Medical Research Council Centre of Excellence in End of Life Care

Previous research projects

• Enduring documents – improving the forms, improving the outcomes
• Families and generational asset transfers: making and challenging wills in contemporary Australia
• Improving service provision by legal practitioners to clients in relation to enduring powers of attorney and advance health directives
• Managing family objection to autopsy: A case study of the Queensland coronial system
• Withholding and withdrawing life-sustaining medical treatment from adults who lack capacity: The role of law in medical practice