Caregiving Across the Life Course: A Health Policy Priority for North Carolina.

At least one in five North Carolinians is an informal caregiver for a relative or friend with a serious health problem, illness, or disability. Existing state-level systems are inadequate to support caregivers' needs. We propose 10 recommendations for adopting a life course perspective to address caregiver needs across North Carolina's diverse population.

Toward a Regional Gerontological Agenda: The Use of Empowerment Evaluation.

This article describes the application of an empowerment evaluation approach to nurturing the growth and priority setting of a regional organization. A model is provided of the processes whereby the Southern Gerontological Society (SGS) identified research and service priorities by conducting a survey of stakeholder perceptions of regional needs. The survey goal was to identify important issues faced by older adults in the South as a prelude to refining SGS research and service priorities and developing its contemporary regional gerontological agenda.