Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the WHO Department of Ageing and Life Course.

Low-income Latino immigrants are understudied in elder abuse research. Limited English proficiency, economic insecurity, neighborhood seclusion, a tradition of resolving conflicts within the family, and mistrust of authorities may impede survey research and suppress abuse reporting. To overcome these barriers, we recruited and trained promotores, local Spanish-speaking Latinos, to interview a sample of Latino adults age 66 and older residing in low-income communities. The promotores conducted door-to-door interviews in randomly selected census tracts in Los Angeles to assess the frequency of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, financial exploitation, and caregiver neglect. Overall, 40.4% of Latino elders experienced some form of abuse and/or neglect within the previous year. Nearly 25% reported psychological abuse, 10.7% indicated physical assault, 9% reported sexual abuse, 16.7% indicated financial exploitation, and 11.7% were neglected by their caregivers. Younger age, higher education, and experiencing sexual or physical abuse before age 65 were significant risk factors for psychological, physical, and/or sexual abuse. Years lived in the United States, younger age, and prior abuse were associated with increased risk of financial exploitation. Years spent living in the U.S. was a significant risk factor for caregiver neglect. Abuse prevalence was much higher in all mistreatment domains than findings from previous research on community-dwelling elders, suggesting that low-income Latino immigrants are highly vulnerable to elder mistreatment, or that respondents are more willing to disclose abuse to promotores who represent their culture and community.

Little is known about characteristics of those who transition to the community after long stays in nursing facilities. Yet this information is highly relevant to efforts to reduce preventable nursing facility use. This study identifies and compares community transition among short-stay (1–90 days) and long-stay residents (91–365 days) aged 65+ using Kaplan-Meier survival estimates and logistic regression to analyze 3,762 episodes of care in Southern California. Over 90% of community discharges occurred in the first 90 days, and few characteristics predicted discharge after 90 days. Findings inform transition programs’ efforts to identify and effectively target residents after 90-day stays.

Characterizing the types of elder abuse and identifying the characteristics of perpetrators are critically important. This study examined the types of elder abuse reported to the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) resource line. Calls were coded with regard to whether abuse was reported, types of abuse alleged, whether multiple abuse subtypes occurred, and who perpetrated the alleged abuse. Of the 1,939 calls, 818 (42.2%) alleged abuse, with financial abuse being the most commonly reported (449 calls, 54.9%). A subset of calls identified multiple abuse types (188, 23.0%) and multiple abusers (149, 18.2%). Physical abuse was most likely to co-occur with another abuse type (61/93 calls, 65.6%). Family members were the most commonly identified perpetrators (309 calls, 46.8%). This study reports the characteristics of elder abuse from a unique source of frontline data, the NCEA resource line. Findings point to the importance of supportive resources for elder abuse victims and loved ones.

The abuse of older women appears to be a significant problem. Developing a better understanding of the extent of the problem is an important step toward preventing it. We conducted a global systematic review and meta-analysis of existing prevalence studies, in multiple languages, that occurred in the community settings from inception to June 26, 2015, in order to determine the extent of abuse against women aged 60 years and over. To disentangle the wide variations in prevalence estimates, we also investigated the associations between prevalence estimates and studies' demographic and methodological characteristics. A total of 50 studies were included in the meta-analysis. The combined prevalence for overall elder abuse in the past year was 14.1% (95% confidence interval (CI) [11.0, 18.0]). Pooled prevalence for psychological abuse was 11.8% (95% CI [9.2%, 14.9%]), neglect was 4.1% (95% CI [2.7%, 6.3%]), financial abuse was 3.8% (95% CI [2.5%, 5.5%]), sexual abuse was 2.2% (95% CI [1.6%, 3.0%]), and physical abuse was 1.9% (95% CI [1.2%, 3.1%]). The studies included in the meta-analysis for overall abuse were heterogeneous indicating that significant differences among the prevalence estimates exist. Significant associations were found between prevalence estimates and the following covariates: World Health Organization-defined regions, countries' income classification, and sample size. Together, these covariates explained 37% of the variance. Although robust prevalence studies are sparse in low- and middle-income countries, about 1 in 6, or 68 million older women experience abuse worldwide. More work is needed to understand the variation in prevalence rates and implications for prevention.