Aging

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.

New research offers some much-need recommendations on how to curb MRSA infections among nursing home residents. As it turns out, the activities that pose the greatest risk of infection aren't always what you might think they'd be.

The rate of childhood obesity has tripled over the past 30 years. While there are no easy solutions, programs that focus on the whole family have shown positive results in changing both behaviors and health measures.

There's little data available on in-home caregiving, which makes reporting on the issue challenging. Unlike nursing homes, in-home care suffers from little oversight. But that's why it's such an important topic to cover. Here are some essential resources and tips to get started.