Women face a persistent health care gap: they are misdiagnosed at disproportionate rates, experience adverse medication effects more often, and live more of their lives in poor health than men. NYU Langone Health is committed to changing that reality by treating women as whole people across every stage of life.
The idea behind our docu-series was simple but powerful: show what comprehensive women’s health looks like through the intimate stories of women who experienced it firsthand. Custom Content from WSJ in partnership with NYU Langone Health created "Whole Life Health Care," a three part docu-series that put real patient journeys at the center, pairing deeply personal experiences with the doctors and research working to transform care.
Each episode illuminated a different dimension of women’s health: one woman’s journey from years of endometriosis pain to becoming pain free, a patient’s experience navigating menopause and the care that helped her feel like herself again, and the research driving better care for older women.
Our common goal was to raise awareness of NYU Langone’s holistic approach to women’s health, connect with the WSJ audience through human centered storytelling, and demonstrate that better care begins by listening to women, understanding their whole lives, and advancing the science around them.
We built "Whole Life Health Care" as a three part docu-series designed to make a complex health care issue personal, accessible and impossible to ignore. The strategy was to move beyond institutional claims and let lived experience prove the value of comprehensive care.
The series was brought to life through a close collaboration between Custom Content from WSJ, whose expertise in premium storytelling shaped the editorial approach, and NYU Langone Health, whose clinical expertise and commitment to women’s health gave the work its authority and purpose. Together, we created stories that balanced journalistic storytelling with the gravitas of an institution actively working to advance women’s health.
That balance began on set. Because the stories were deeply personal, the production process required creating an environment where women could feel comfortable sharing vulnerable experiences about pain, stigma, uncertainty and moments that had profoundly affected their lives. We carefully considered the crew, setting and interview approach to give each participant the space and trust to speak openly and authentically.
The same care continued through the edit. Our challenge was to find the precise tonal balance: informative without feeling clinical, personal without becoming overly saccharine. Each story was shaped to first connect audiences with a woman as a person, inviting them into her experience, before connecting the dots to the larger issues surrounding women’s health and the systemic gaps NYU Langone Health is working to address.
Each episode then expanded that lens. The first followed Alexandria, whose endometriosis had caused debilitating pain for years, showing how listening, multidisciplinary care and surgical expertise ultimately changed her life. The second followed Herlin through menopause, a life stage long overlooked by medicine and stigmatized by society, while NYU Langone Health physicians explained how its Center for Midlife Health and Menopause is rethinking care. The third shifted from patient experience to scientific discovery, taking viewers inside the research helping physicians better understand conditions that disproportionately affect women as they age.
Together, the films created a continuum of stories across women’s lives. Rather than simply telling audiences that NYU Langone Health provides whole life health care, the series showed what that promise looks and feels like through the women experiencing it, the physicians delivering it and the researchers advancing it. The result was branded content with the emotional resonance of documentary storytelling and the credibility to make a larger conversation about women’s health impossible to overlook.
"Whole Life Health Care" exceeded every campaign goal, demonstrating that audiences will engage deeply with women’s health when the storytelling is human, personal and grounded in real experiences.
The three releases all surpassed their individual video goals and generated click through rates above benchmark. The series exceeded guaranteed page views by almost 300%, while average session duration and video completion rates also outperformed benchmarks. Across the campaign, the content generated more than 2 million video views and achieved over 400% of the total page view goal.
These results showed that the strategy worked on both reach and engagement. Audiences did not simply encounter NYU Langone Health’s message; they spent time with it, watched the stories and responded to content that connected medical expertise with deeply relatable human experiences.
Most importantly, the series gave a complex issue a compelling human face. By spotlighting women whose lives were changed by being heard, cared for holistically and supported by advances in research, "Whole Life Health Care" helped demonstrate what more equitable, comprehensive women’s health can look like. It turned awareness into meaningful attention, and institutional expertise into stories audiences chose to watch.
Perhaps the greatest measure of our success? Custom Content from WSJ's ongoing partnership with NYU Langone Health to produce another docu-series, a testament to the trust we’ve built and the impact we continue to create together.
