Cheney Orr: The Texas County Where ‘Everybody Has Somebody in Their Family’ With Dementia
Cheney Orr
“In Starr County, Texas, near the state’s southern tip along the U.S.-Mexico border, escaping dementia can feel impossible. The condition affects about one in five adults on Medicare—more than double the national rate. ‘Everybody has somebody in their family’ with dementia.”
Published this week in The Atlantic with support from the Magnum Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund for a series on health equity in the United States, Cheney Orr’s visual reporting highlights the ways dementia looms over this Texas county, where many with the condition are cared for at home.
“These ‘risk factors usually do not come [as] one; they come in clusters,’ Maestre said—and in Starr County, an almost entirely Hispanic community, they quickly stack up...These accumulate in cycles of grief and stress: The people I spoke with talked about deaths in the family followed by strokes that cascade into cognitive decline. Dementia isn’t simply a diagnosis. It’s a structural outcome. Still, many in Starr County struggle to make sense of it. And no matter the cause—no matter which conglomeration of causes—they must live with dementia’s reality.”