Dr. Jessica Young
What’s the episode about?
In this episode, hear Dr Jessica Young on assisted dying, the New Zealand End of Life Choice Bill, culturally responsive research, end of life care and decision making, and sociological approaches
Who is Jessica?
Dr Jessica Young is a Senior Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington and the University of Auckland, and an adjunct senior lecturer in the Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology.
She is a sociologist specialising in death, dying and assisted dying. She completed her PhD in 2020 at the University of Otago and received a prestigious post-doctoral fellowship from the Cancer Society of New Zealand.
Since the End of Life Choice Bill was introduced in New Zealand, Dr Young has been building a programme of research to investigate multiple facets of assisted dying.
She leads and contributes to several projects on assisted dying, most recently ‘Exploring the early experiences of the assisted dying service in Aotearoa’, funded by the Health Research Council. Dr Young has led impactful research in end-of-life care, securing over $3 million in competitive funding.
She is the founder and co-chair of New Zealand’s Assisted Dying Research Network and was appointed by the Director-General of Health to the Support and Consultation for End of Life in NZ (SCENZ) Group (2021–2023). Her work has directly shaped national policy: 13 of her team’s recommendations were adopted in the Ministry of Health’s 2024 End of Life Choice Act Review.
She has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles, six editorials, and three book chapters.
To ensure her research goes beyond academia, she actively engages with media. She is passionate about improving end-of-life experiences for patients, whānau/families and health practitioners. Committed to ethical, inclusive, and culturally responsive research, she seeks to involve tangata whenua (indigenous people of NZ), stakeholders and communities.
You can find Jessica on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-young-7097a722/
The book introduced in the episode introduction is Death, Commemoration, and Cultural Meaning Past and Present Edited by Robert Spinelli and Robyn S. Lacy.
Where can I listen?
How do I cite the episode in my research and reading lists?
To cite this episode, you can use the following citation:
Young, J. (2025) Interview on The Death Studies Podcast hosted by Michael-Fox, B. and Visser, R. Published 1 November 2025. Available at: www.thedeathstudiespodcast.com, DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.30507878
What next?
Check out more episodes or find out more about the hosts! Got a question? Get in touch.