Study: Blacks less likely to have living wills, medical directives - USATODAY.com

Study: Blacks less likely to have living wills, medical directives - USATODAY.com: Nearly two-thirds of nursing home patients have advance directives, documents allowing people to make end of life decisions when they might not be able to speak for themselves, a government study shows.

But the study, out today, reveals a significant gap between black and white patients with the documents.

The National Center for Health Statistics looked at three groups of long-term care patients and found that 65% of those in nursing homes had advance directives such as living wills and do-not-resuscitate orders, as did 88% in hospice settings and 28% in home health care.