Aging

Most Americans nearing death don’t have access to palliative services and good end-of-life care. But for underserved populations of African-Americans, Latinos and Asians, the gap is even wider.

The nursing home industry is a powerful force that pushes back against the great work reporters have done in exposing elder abuse. Plus, we as a country are not very interested in old people except as a part of a commercial transaction.

Homelessness is a health crisis, and the clock is ticking. With homeless life expectancy between 42 and 52, and half of the nation's homeless at least 50, it's not surprising that Orange and several other California counties have seen a dramatic rise in homeless deaths in recent years.

Social isolation and ageism are issues that many LGBT older adults encounter in retirement, as a growing body of academic papers and health research has documented.

“Everyone agrees that housing is an important determinant of health, but that’s very hard to measure because it’s overly correlated with other aspects of poverty,” said Thomas Waters, a housing policy analyst in New York City.

Older adults are more likely to suffer from loneliness, a risk-factor for premature death. Caregivers such as Maria Martínez can help seniors stay in their homes longer while offering needed companionship.

Too often, people experience death in ways deeply at odds with how they'd wish to live out their final days. In a recent webinar, a policy expert and journalist shared ideas for how the U.S. healthcare system navigates the end of life.

A physician turns to fiction to show how demanding caring for a loved one in the period before death can be, and how difficult it is to infuse the process with dignity.

We journalists name and often unwittingly frame debates, nudging our readers one way or another. As the recent passage of California's "End of Life Option Act" illustrated, sometimes there aren't any elegant escapes from politically loaded language.

Despite new recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force in 2009 urging women to reevaluate how often they receive mammograms, there's still an incredible amount of confusion over how often women should undergo such screening tests.