Author: Paula Span, KFF Health News/New York Times

A Low-Tech Human Intervention Reaping Huge Health Dividends

A community healthcare worker, the American Public Health Association says, is a “trusted member” of a local community or someone who has “an unusually close understanding” of it, enabling the worker to serve as intermediary between patients and the healthcare system.

When I Go, I’m Going Green

Buying a cemetery plot where I can have a green burial, on the other hand, proved to be surprisingly affordable and will allow my body, once no longer in use, to decompose as quickly and as naturally as possible, with minimal environmental damage.

Honey, Sweetie, Dearie: The Perils Of Elderspeak

Objecting to elderspeak need not become adversarial. Residents and patients — and people who encounter elderspeak elsewhere, because it’s hardly limited to health care settings — can politely explain how they prefer to be spoken to and what they want to be called.