Health Affairs

Health Affairs, 26, no. 6 (2007): 1728-1734 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.26.6.1728 © 2007 by Project HOPE	New Online   Getting Health Reform Done   After the State of the Union   Incremental Reform   E-Health in Developing World   Most-Read Articles in 2009

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Narrative Matters

Dad’s Legacy

Jerald Winakur

PREFACE: "If a picture is worth one thousand words, a good story is worth many columns of statistics," wrote the editors of Narrative Matters: The Power of the Personal Essay in Health Policy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006) in the preface to the anthology of Narrative Matters essays. This sentiment captures the vision of the Narrative Matters section as it has appeared in Health Affairs for the past eight years. To celebrate the journal’s twenty-fifth anniversary, we thought that the Narrative Matters section should take a look at itself. To do that, we asked one of the section’s most successful authors to write a narrative about having written a narrative. Texas geriatrician Jerry Winakur wrote an essay titled "What Are We Going to Do with Dad?" in the July/August 2005 issue of Health Affairs. The Washington Post republished it, talk shows interviewed him, and e-mail poured in nonstop for many weeks. His essay stimulated not only sympathy but considerable debate about the many policy issues raised by his story; as a policy narrative, it became the grist of policy deliberation and the precursor to political action. Winakur’s new essay is a reflection on his literary/policy journey and a tribute to the power of the policy narrative.

The first 100 words of the full text of this article appear below.

NUMBERS NEVER TELL the whole story. Take this particular data set: There are now 4.5 million Americans among the "oldest old"—those over age eighty-five. By 2030 there will be seventy-two million Americans over age sixty-five, and almost ten million of them will be among our "oldest old," the fastest-growing demographic segment of our society. Only one in twenty in this demographic is fully mobile. Half are cognitively impaired.

These are, indeed, raw data, harsh statistics. This is the demographic fodder that feeds the legions of think-tankers, that is the grist for the churning mills of policymakers.

Perhaps your parents . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Telling Our Story

 
From a daughter:A young college professor wrote:Another daughter wrote:A son wrote:A woman wrote:From a gerontologist:From a clinical psychologist:

Learning To Listen

 

My Father’s Legacy

 

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