If you spotted a mistake, have a question about something I wrote, or want to suggest a topic I have not covered, this form comes straight to me.
I am not a physician, and I cannot give medical advice about a specific person. I cannot tell you whether your father is safe to keep driving, what a new medication is doing to his balance, or whether a fall needs an emergency room. Those questions need someone who can actually see him. If this is an emergency, call 911. For anything medical, call the doctor’s office or the nurse line on the back of the insurance card. They are used to these calls.
What I can help with
- Corrections. A figure that looks wrong, a study I have misread, a price that has gone stale.
- Questions about a guide. If something I wrote was unclear, that is useful for me to know.
- Topic suggestions. Tell me what you went looking for and could not find.
- Broken links and technical problems. Tell me which page.
- Media and interview requests.
Corrections are the point of this site. I check every claim against a primary source before it goes up, and I still get things wrong. If you think a number, a study, or a recommendation is mistaken, pick Correction to an article in the form and tell me the page and the sentence. I will check it against the original source. If the site is wrong, I fix it and I note the correction in the article itself, so the old wording cannot quietly come back.
When to expect a reply
I write this site on my own, in the evenings, around a full-time job running training for a humanitarian demining organization. I read every message. I usually reply within a week, and longer when I am traveling for work. Corrections go to the front of the line.
If you want to know who is behind the site and how I decide what to publish, that is all on the about page.
Send me a message
What happens to what you send. Your message arrives in my email inbox and goes nowhere else. I do not add anyone to a mailing list, I do not sell or share what you send me, and I do not need your phone number or your address. The privacy policy has the full detail.
If you need help right now
A form that I answer in a week is no use in a crisis. These are faster, and they are staffed by people whose job this is.
- A medical emergency, or a fall with a head injury, a suspected broken bone, or someone who cannot get up: call 911.
- Help finding local services, including home care, meals, transportation, and your local Area Agency on Aging: call the Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116. It is a free federal service.
- Dementia questions, at any hour: the Alzheimer’s Association helpline, 800-272-3900, is staffed around the clock.
If you are here because something happened and you are trying to work out what to do next, the guides are organized by problem, and I would start there.