Nancy Berlinger is a Senior Research Scholar at The Hastings Center. Her interdisciplinary research explores ethical and social challenges arising from population aging, a demographic shift toward longer lives and smaller families. Its goal is to help researchers, professionals, and members of the public think together about common challenges facing aging societies like the United States, with attention to foundational questions: What does it mean to live a good life in later life? And how should we live together in aging societies?

Berlinger’s Bioethics for Aging Societies research portfolio includes work on dementia, family caregiving, health care decision-making, housing, and technology.  A cross-cutting theme of this research is how cultural narratives convey ideas and values about aging in ways that shape individual experiences and societal investments. It has been supported by grants from the National Institute on Aging, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Retirement Research Foundation for Aging, the Greenwall Foundation, and the Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust.  Berlinger also has longstanding research interests in problems of safety and harm in health care; ethics guidance for health care practitioners in end-of-life and crisis conditions, and immigrant health.

Berlinger founded and directs The Hastings Center’s Sadler Scholars program for advanced doctoral students and early-career bioethics researchers.

She received her BA in English and history from Smith College, her PhD in English from the University of Glasgow, and an MDiv from Union Theological Seminary, with a concentration in social ethics. She traces her orientation toward real-world challenges to human health and flourishing to her first job, in an HIV/AIDS service organization before the advent of effective antiretroviral therapies.

See PubMed indexed publications here

Books

 Nancy Berlinger. Are Workarounds Ethical? Managing Moral Problems in Health Care Systems (Oxford, 2016).

Nancy Berlinger, Bruce Jennings, and Susan M. Wolf. The Hastings Center Guidelines for Decisions on Life-Sustaining Treatment and Care Near the End of Life: Revised and Expanded Second Edition (Oxford, 2013 [1987])

Nancy Berlinger.  After Harm: Medical Error and the Ethics of Forgiveness (Johns Hopkins, 2005)

Selected reports and edited volumes

Nancy Berlinger, Erin Gentry Lamb, Kate de Medeiros, and Liz Bowen, eds. Living with Dementia: Learning from Cultural Narratives in Aging Societies. Hastings Center Report 55 special report (2025): S1-S128. Report

Nancy Berlinger, Emily Largent, Mara Buchbinder, and Mildred Z. Solomon, eds. Facing Dementia: Clarifying End-of-Life Choices, Supporting Better Lives. Hastings Center Report 51 special report (2024): SS1-SS50. Report

Jennifer Molinsky, Nancy Berlinger, and Bailey Hu.  Advancing Housing and Health Equity for Older Adults: Pandemic Innovations and Policy Ideas. Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard University and The Hastings Center. October 2022.  Report and Recommendations

Nancy Berlinger, Kate de Medeiros, and Mildred Z. Solomon, eds. What Makes a Good Life in Late Life? Citizenship and Justice in Aging Societies. Hastings Center Report 48, no. 5 (2018): SS1-SS84. Report

Jacqueline J. Chin, Nancy Berlinger, Michael C. Dunn, and Michael K. Gusmano, eds. A Singapore Bioethics Casebook. Volume I: Making Difficult Decisions with Patients and Families (2015). Volume II: Caring for Older People in an Ageing Society (2017). National University of Singapore. Full text of both volumes: www.bioethicscasebook.sg

Nancy Berlinger, Claudia Calhoon, Michael K. Gusmano, and Jackie Vimo. Undocumented Patients and Access to Health Care in New York City: Identifying Fair, Effective, and Sustainable Local Policy Solutions: Report to the Office of the Mayor of the City of New York. The Hastings Center and the New York Immigration Coalition. April 2015.  Report and Recommendations

Selected Covid-19 guidance and research

Nancy Berlinger, Matthew Wynia, et al. (2020-21). “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 and supplements. https://www.thehastingscenter.org/ethicalframeworkcovid19/

Mara Buchbinder, Alyssa Browne, Nancy Berlinger, Tania Jenkins, and Liza Buchbinder. (2023). “Moral Stress and Moral Distress: Confronting Challenges in Healthcare Systems under Pressure.” Target article. The American Journal of Bioethics, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/15265161.2023.2224270

Selected articles

Nancy Berlinger and Alison Reiheld. “Ethics at the Hinge: Health-Care Organizations and Family Caregivers During Discharge Planning.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 68, no. 2 (2025): 255-270. Abstract: https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/pbm.2025.a962022.

Berlinger & Reiheld-PBM-2025

Kate de Medeiros, Nancy Berlinger, and Laura Girling (2022). “Not Wanting to Lose the Dignity of Risk: On Living Alone with Dementia.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine Volume 65, Issue 2: 274-282.

https://doi.org/10.1353/pbm.2022.0023

Nancy Berlinger, Kate de Medeiros, and Laura Girling (2021). “Bioethics and Gerontology: The Value of Thinking Together.” The Gerontologist 2021 https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/gnab186

Susan M. Wolf, Nancy Berlinger, and Bruce Jennings (2015). “40 Years of Work on End-of-Life Care – From Patients’ Rights to Systemic Reform,” NEJM 372; 7: 678-82. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMms1410321

Selected commentaries

Nancy Berlinger (2019). “With No Dementia Cure in Sight, It’s Time for Communities to Become Dementia Friendly.” STAT News. August 14. https://www.statnews.com/2019/08/14/dementia-friendly-projects-communities/

Berlinger, Nancy (2017). “More Than Just Sanctuary, Migrants Need Social Citizenship,” Aeon. August 29. https://aeon.co/ideas/more-than-just-sanctuary-migrants-need-social-citizenship