Join us in Washington, D.C., to shape the future of bereavement research and clinical care
By: Adeline Von Drehle
Every meaningful change in how America cares for the bereaved has come from people who decided to show up – bereaved individuals, clinicians, researchers, and community leaders who refused to wait for the field to fix itself. On October 22, the next chapter starts in Washington, DC. We need you in the room.
Why This Moment Matters
Bereavement is a universal human experience. Yet, despite its profound impact on health and well-being, bereavement remains overlooked in research and policy, including in health and healthcare settings, reimbursement infrastructure, public health frameworks, and workforce training and preparation. While millions of Americans experience the death of a loved one each year, research has consistently linked bereavement to serious behavioral and physical health consequences, including increased risk for substance misuse, suicide attempts, suicide, dementia, and premature death. Even so, bereaved individuals often face a fragmented system of care that is based on research that rarely reflects their lived experiences and provides insufficient access to effective and compassionate support.
For decades, much of bereavement research has focused on the medicalization of grief rather than on understanding the different realities of loss and identifying the types of support that help people navigate bereavement in their everyday lives. Moreover, many commonly used bereavement interventions have been adopted with limited evidence regarding their effectiveness. As a result, clinicians, institutions, and communities often do not have the information or resources they need to make informed decisions in providing quality bereavement care, leaving bereaved individuals and families to endure undue and unnecessary hardships.
Evermore believes it is time for a new approach.
What’s Happening on October 22
With funding from a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Engagement Award, Evermore established the Lived Experience Bereavement Research Network (LEBRN) to ensure that bereaved individuals are not merely subjects of research, but active partners in shaping it. Over the past 18 months, LEBRN has brought together bereaved individuals, care providers, and researchers to develop principles for engaging bereaved people in research and identify priority questions to help guide future research about bereavement care.
Now, Evermore invites you to join the next phase of this important work.
On Thursday, October 22, 2026, Evermore will host Better Together: Shaping Tomorrow’s Bereavement Care Research at the Kaiser Permanente Center for Total Health in Washington, DC. This inaugural gathering will bring together bereaved individuals, clinicians, researchers, professional associations, and community organizations to discuss how we can build a stronger, more patient-centered future for bereavement research and care.
The future of bereavement care depends on research that reflects the realities, priorities, and experiences of the people it is intended to serve. This meeting is an opportunity to perpetuate the national movement that places lived experience at the center of scientific inquiry and innovation in clinical settings.
“What we do in this room will outlast all of us. Every American will be touched by bereavement at some point in their life, and the field we build now will shape how their grief is met for the next fifty years,” Evermore Executive Director Joyal Mulheron noted. “There are very few moments when you get to stand at the beginning of something this consequential. October 22 is one of them.”
What You’ll Do
The people who gather on October 22 are the changemakers who will carry this work back into their communities, clinics, classrooms, and policy halls. The future of bereavement care will be shaped by people who decide to lead from where they are – and this is the room where that leadership starts.
Participants will hear from experts in the field, who will provide information and prompt meaningful conversation about the current state of bereavement research, why patient-centered research is needed, and how lived experience can strengthen future studies. Attendees will review and discuss the engagement principles and research priorities developed through LEBRN and provide valuable feedback on how these frameworks can be applied across healthcare, community, and research settings.
Participants will also explore key questions facing the field today, including:
- Is grief a human experience – or a mental health disorder?
- Which bereavement supports actually work, and which ones have we been using without knowing?
- What’s blocking clinical systems from providing quality bereavement care?
- How do we – healthcare systems, community organizations, researchers, and bereaved people – build together instead of past each other?
Join Evermore and a national gathering of community leaders, advocates, researchers, clinicians, and bereaved individuals as we work together to create a stronger foundation for the next generation of bereavement research.
Bereaved person. Clinician. Researcher. Community leader. Policy advocate. Wherever you’re coming from, October 22 is where this work moves forward. Click here to register and here to learn more about LEBRN. In the meantime, we invite healthcare leaders to join our town hall for Healthcare Leaders on July 23, 2026, an online conversation preceding our October gathering, or take our Pulse Survey to help identify gaps in bereavement care.
Together, we can help ensure that future research asks the right questions, engages all voices, and ultimately leads to better care and support for all bereaved people. We hope you can join us in this movement and at this event.