JAMA October 2026 Advance Care Planning for Black and White Older Adults With Serious Illness The EQUAL ACP Randomized Trial

The EQUAL ACP randomized trial investigated whether facilitated advance care planning outperforms self-guided methods for seriously ill older adults. Researchers evaluated completion rates over one year among nearly eight hundred Black and White participants aged sixty-five and older across multiple Southern clinics. Overall results indicated no statistically significant difference in completion between the two strategies when analyzed strictly within individual racial groups. However, pooled data analysis revealed a significant interaction between race and intervention, suggesting that the facilitated method held greater effectiveness for Black participants compared to White participants. Ultimately, the study highlights that while racial background influenced intervention response, neither approach universally surpassed the other within specific racial categories.