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For this survey, respondents from three counties in the Detroit, Michigan, area were queried about their health, satisfaction with their health care, end of life decisions, policies about life and death decisions, and experiences with life and death decisions. The first set of questions asked respondents to rate their own health and to indicate whether they had seen a health care professional in the past five years as well as what type of health professional they had seen. They were also asked whether or not they trust the health care provider's judgment on medical decisions and whether they felt that a doctor or family members would follow the respondent's instructions for life sustaining procedures. The survey also explored how satisfied respondents were with the amount of time they spent with their doctor and the doctor's response to questions as well as their honesty and concern for their patient. Additional questions asked respondents how concerned HMO's are with costs and patient health and what their opinions were on how much money is spent on medical technology and care for terminally ill patients. Another set of questions sought respondent's opinions on terminating a patient's life support in a variety of different situations, including the treatment of critically ill infants. The survey also asked whether respondents or their family had ever experienced an end-of-life decision, whether they have discussed end-of-life decisions, and what types of methods they would consider. Respondents were also asked about their attitudes on the death penalty, abortion in certain situations, physician assisted suicide and the 1998 proposal to legalize physician assisted suicide. Background information includes marital status, employment, political orientation, and income.

Legislative support for physician aid-in-dying (PAD) in the US has risen steadily in recent years. In May 2013, Vermont became the fourth state to legalize PAD, through the "Patient Choice and Control at End of Life" Act (Act 39). The law authorized physicians to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to a mentally competent, terminally ill, adult patient for the purpose of ending the patient's life. With ongoing legislative activities in many other states, these laws are expected to spread nationally. This shifting legislative climate raises questions about how societies respond to changes in the sociocultural and biopolitical organization of death. While social scientists have examined the social and political forces that shape 'right to die' movements and counter-movements, sanctioning the right to die is only the first step in institutionalizing PAD as a new cultural and medical practice. What happens once these rights are legally authorized?

The purpose of this study was to learn about how people in Vermont have been affected by Act 39. This 2-year ethnographic study (July 2016-June 2018) addressed the following overarching research questions:

1. How do ordinary people understand, access, experience, and contest the 'right to die' through PAD once it has been granted?
2. How do healthcare providers and policy stakeholders accommodate or resist PAD as a new end-of-life practice?
3. How does PAD affect the cultural landscape of care for the dying in the US?

Due to the recent enactment of Act 39, and Vermont's small size and the geographic proximity of key institutions, Vermont offered an ideal setting to explore these questions and document emergent responses to a new socio-legal phenomenon across multiple sites. By tracing the social life of Act 39 from the Vermont State House to the institutions, experts, and ordinary people responsible for managing death, this study yielded valuable information about the broad sociocultural consequences of legalizing PAD, including unintended consequences, that will be relevant to US policymakers, clinicians, patients, and families.

This collection includes semi-structured interviews with seriously ill Vermont patients, survivors of people who have used Act 39, healthcare providers and administrators, activists, and legislators, as well as participant observation in settings in which PAD is likely to be discussed. Participants were asked about their personal and professional backgrounds, attitudes on death and the legalization of PAD, understandings of the physician's role and responsibilities regarding end-of-life care, and interactions between healthcare providers, patients, and caregivers about PAD. The age, gender, and race of the participants are also provided.