
Nancy Berlinger
Ph.D.
Research Scholar
Download CV for Nancy Berlinger
Nancy Berlinger is a Research Scholar at The Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institute based in Garrison, NY. Her current research focuses on ethical and societal challenges arising from population aging; the bioethics of migration, and responding to and learning from the Covid-19 pandemic. She has longstanding research interests in decision-making and care in serious illness and near the end of life; the management of problems of safety and harm in health systems, and the moral dimensions of care work. She directs The Hastings Center’s Visiting Scholar Program, including the Sadler Scholars Program for doctoral students from underrepresented communities, here.
Highlights of current and recent work:
Bioethics for aging societies:
Since 2016, Berlinger has overseen the development of research projects and public-facing work exploring the consequences of population aging, with close attention to what it means to flourish in late life, how to support experiences such as living with dementia, and how to apply concepts and data from housing-focused research and policy analysis to conceptualizing aging in community.
Selected publications:
M Gary and N Berlinger. “Interdependent Citizens: The Ethics of Care in Pandemic Recovery.” Hastings Center Report. May-June 2020. Access here
“Aging in (a) Place: Planning, Design & Spatial Justice in Aging Societies,” Public symposium, Harvard Graduate School of Design, October 18, 2019 The Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies in partnership with The Hastings Center. Agenda and videos here
N Berlinger, “With No Dementia Cure in Sight, It’s Time for Communities to Become Dementia Friendly.” STAT News, August 14, 2019. Access here
N Berlinger, K de Medeiros, and MZ Solomon, eds., What Makes a Good Life in Late Life? Citizenship and Justice in Aging Societies, special report, Hastings Center Report 48, no. 5 (2018). Access here
JJ Chin, MC Dunn, N Berlinger, and MK Gusmano, “Good Care at Home for Older People in Singapore,” Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, 2017. Access here
JJ Chin, N Berlinger, MC Dunn, C W-L. Ho, MK Gusmano, eds., Making Difficult Decisions with Patients and Families: A Singapore Casebook (National University of Singapore, January 2014) Access here; JJ Chin, N Berlinger, MC Dunn, MK Gusmano, eds., Caring for Older People in an Ageing Society: A Singapore Bioethics Casebook, Volume II (National University of Singapore, May 2017) Access here
SM Wolf, N Berlinger, and B Jennings, “40 Years of Work on End-of-Life Care – From Patients’ Rights to Systemic Reform,” NEJM 372; 7 (2015): 678-82. Read here
The bioethics of migration:
In 2011, Berlinger co-founded the Undocumented Patients Project to explore ethical challenges arising in health care access for undocumented immigrants. This project maintains a public database of literature on this topic and produces public health convenings on local, national, and global challenges. A 2014 convening in partnership with the New York Immigration Coalition produced recommendations for a direct-access approach to health care for uninsured undocumented immigrants that was piloted and fully implemented in the nation’s largest public health system. A 2018 convening, “Creating Systems of Safety for Immigrant Health,” brought clinical, legal, and community-based practitioners together to explore how health systems could effectively respond to the needs of immigrants as a vulnerable population. With support from the World Health Organization, she co-developed a framework and toolkit to analyze literature on community-level pandemic responses to migrant health. She was a 2018 resident at the Bellagio Center of the Rockefeller Foundation for her current book project on the bioethics of migration.
Selected publications:
N Berlinger, L Eckenwiler, V Wild, B Wills, “Responding to Low-Wage Migrant Workers’ Health During COVID-19: A Normative Framework and Practical Toolkit for Using ‘Grey Literature’ as a Source of Promising Practices and Policy Ideas” Resource prepared for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Ethics Network (PHEPREN) and the Ethics and Governance Unit, WHO, March 31, 2021
N Gray, N Boucher, L Cervantes, N Berlinger, et al., “Hospice Access and Scope of Services for Undocumented Immigrants: A Clinician Survey,” Journal of Palliative Medicine. 2020 Dec 22.
Access here
L Cervantes and N Berlinger, “Moving the Needle: How Hospital-Based Research Expanded Medicaid Coverage for Undocumented Immigrants in Colorado,” Health Progress March-April 2020. Access here
N Berlinger, “‘Getting Creative’: From Workarounds to Sustainable Solutions for Immigrant Health Care,” Journal of Law Medicine & Ethics 47, no. 3 (2019): 409-11.
N Berlinger, “More Than Just Sanctuary, Migrants Need Social Citizenship,” Aeon (August 29, 2017). Access here
N Berlinger, C Calhoon, MK Gusmano, and J Vimo, “Undocumented Patients and Access to Health Care in New York City: Identifying Fair, Effective, and Sustainable Local Policy Solutions: Report and Recommendations to the Office of the Mayor of New York City,” The Hastings Center and the New York Immigration Coalition, April 2015.
Selected publications responding to Covid-19:
N Berlinger, M Wynia, et al, The Hastings Center Covid-19 Ethical Framework and Supplements:
“Ethical Framework for Health Care Institutions Responding to Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19), with Guidelines for Institutional Ethics Services Responding to Covid-19,” March 16, 2020. Access here; “Responding to Covid-19 as a Regional Public Health Challenge: Preliminary Guidelines for Regional Collaboration Involving Hospitals,” April 29, 2020. Access here; “Access to Therapeutic and Palliative Drugs in the Context of Covid-19: Justice and the Relief of Suffering,” July 16, 2020. Access here; “Ethical Challenges in the Middle Tier of Covid-19 Vaccine Allocation: Guidance for Organizational Decision-Making,” January 15, 2021. Access here
Selected empirical research on Covid-19:
Co-Investigator, Study to Examine Physicians’ Pandemic Stress (STEPPS) (Greenwall Foundation and NIOSH, 2021-23, subcontracts from UNC-Chapel Hill).
Co-Principal Investigator, Covid Responses for Equitable Community-based Aging Policies and Practices (Covid RECAPP) (Retirement Research Foundation for Aging, 2021-22, sub-contract from Harvard University).
Her books include: Are Workarounds Ethical? Managing Moral Problems in Health Care Systems (Oxford, 2016); The Hastings Center Guidelines for Decisions on Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care Near the End of Life: Revised and Expanded Second Edition (Oxford, 2013, with Bruce Jennings, and Susan M. Wolf), and After Harm: Medical Error and the Ethics of Forgiveness (Johns Hopkins, 2005).
She serves on the Bioethics Committee of Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY and on the Longterm Care Work Group of the Empire State Bioethics Consortium. She teaches at Lehman College, City University of New York.
She is a graduate of Smith College and received the PhD in English literature from the University of Glasgow and the MDiv, with a focus on ethics, from Union Theological Seminary.
Posts by Nancy Berlinger
- From Bioethics Briefings
Conscience Clauses, Health Care Providers, and Parents
Read the PostFrom Bioethics BriefingsFraming the Issue Conscientious objection in health care is the refusal of a health care professional to provide or participate in the delivery of a legal, medically appropriate health care service to a patient because of personal beliefs. Debates about the practice and limits of conscientious obje...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
MAID Without Borders? Oregon Drops the Residency Requirement
Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Thinking Beyond “The Border”: American Bioethics and the Repair of U.S. Immigration Policy
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayHow should the American bioethics community respond to the latest “crisis at the border,” focused on record numbers of unaccompanied minors – children and teenagers traveling from the Northern Triangle of Central America without parents or guardians — presenting at border crossings along...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Working Around the System: Vaccine Navigators and Vaccine Equity
Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Three Lessons from Leah
Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Social-Change Games Can Help Us Understand the Public Health Choices We Face
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayBefore there was the Covid-19 pandemic, there was Pandemic. This tabletop game, in which players collaborate to fight disease outbreaks, debuted in 2007. Expansions feature weaponized pathogens, historic pandemics, zoonotic diseases, and vaccine development races. Game mechanics modelled on pandemic vectors provide multiple narratives: battle, quest, detection, discovery. There is satisfaction in playing “against” disease–and winning. Real pandemic is not as tidy as a game. But can games support understanding about the societal challenges we now face? Yes.Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Immigrants, Health Inequities, and Social Citizenship in Covid-19 Response and Recovery
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayThe novel coronavirus pandemic has starkly revealed the vulnerabilities of low-wage immigrants, immigrant-led households, and immigrant communities to coronavirus infection, severe Covid-19 illness, and economic fallout from pandemic. This public health emergency compounds pre-existing social inequa...Read the Post - Bioethics Forum Essay
Immigrant Health in the Public Charge Era: 15 Essential Articles
Read the PostBioethics Forum EssayThe public charge rule went into effect nationwide yesterday, formalizing the “public charge era” that began when the draft rule was leaked three years ago. The rule jeopardizes eligibility for legal permanent residency if applicants are deemed public charges based on even short-term use of federally funded programs, such as health insurance, housing subsidies, or food stamps. Anticipation of the rule has had chilling effects on the behavior of immigrants, who have avoided or withdrawn from health-related programs for which they are eligible. What follows is a selected bibliography designed to support learning and progress on immigrant health in a complex policy environment.Read the Post
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Read the Post- Hastings Center News
Hastings Center Welcomes the 2022-2023 Sadler Scholars
Read the PostHastings Center NewsThe Hastings Center is pleased to welcome the 2022-2023 Sadler Scholars, a select group of nine doctoral students with research relevant to bioethics who are from racial and ethnic communities underrepresented in this field in the United States. This is the second cohort of Sadler Scholars; the inau...Read the Post - Page
Inaugural 2021-22 Sadler Scholars
Read the PostPageSadler Scholars are a select group of doctoral students with research interests relevant to bioethics who are from racial and ethnic communities underrepresented in this field in the United States. Admission to this initiative of The Hastings Center’s visiting scholar program is by application.Read the Post Ethics of Workarounds in Health Care with Hastings Center Scholar Nancy Berlinger
Read the PostThe Montgomery Lectures series addresses diverse topics within bioethics and the medical humanities. Presenters are faculty, affiliates, and alumni of the Medical Humanities & Bioethics Graduate Program–along with a few special guests. The lectures run every Thursday from noon to 12:45pm du...Read the Post- In the Media
Nancy Berlinger Calls for Communities to Become “Dementia-Friendly”
Read the PostIn the MediaWith no treatment or cure for dementia in sight, Hastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger writes in Stat about what communities around the world are doing to become more welcoming of people with dementia and their caregivers. Berlinger directs the Center's Bioethics for Aging Societies: Informing Policy and Practice project.Read the Post - Hastings Center News
Hastings Scholar Nancy Berlinger Selected for Bellagio Center Residency
Read the PostHastings Center NewsResearch Scholar Nancy Berlinger is doing original research at The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center on the shores of Lake Como, Italy, as part of a selective academic writing residency. The Bellagio Center supports senior level policy-makers, nonprofit leaders, and others whose work promotes hu...Read the Post - In the Media
Nancy Berlinger in The Atlantic on Patient’s “DNR” Tattoo
Read the Post - Hastings Center News
Nancy Berlinger Co-Authors Palliative Care Recommendations
Read the PostHastings Center NewsHastings Center research scholar Nancy Berlinger is an author of a new policy statement on palliative care issued by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. The statement makes recommendations on how to reduce barriers that prevent many patients with heart disease and stroke from ...Read the Post