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Executive Summary
Pages 1-8

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From page 1...
... While elder mistreatment has attracted sustained efforts from practitioners and some interest from policy makers over the past two decades, it has not received concomitant attention from researchers or from the agencies that provide research funding. No major foundation has identified this field as one of its priorities, and the federal investment has been modest at
From page 2...
... of experts to assess the current state of knowledge in the area of elder mistreatment and to formulate a set of recommendations for a research agenda in that field. When the body of published and unpublished research reports on elder mistreatment is examined as a whole, a number of weaknesses emerge: Unclear and inconsistent definitions Unclear and inadequate measures Incomplete professional accounts Lack of population-based data Lack of prospective data Lack of control groups Lack of systematic evaluation studies Among the factors accounting for these deficiencies are: Little funding and few investigators Methodological uncertainties, especially about surveys Ethical uncertainties regarding research practices Inadequate links between researchers and service agencies Impoverished theory Intertwined and varying research definitions and statutory definitions Divergent research traditions in gerontology and family violence In order the rectify these problems and to propel the field forward, the pane!
From page 3...
... Development of widely accepted operational definitions and validated and standardized measurement methods for the elements of elder mistreatment is urgently needed to move the field forward. The field must develop widely accepted operational definitions of the elements of elder mistreatment, its different forms, and associated risk factors and outcomes.
From page 4...
... Such piggybacking of elder mistreatment items and instruments could also serve as a test bed for developing methodology intended for national surveys. In addition to improved household and geographically referent sampling techniques, new methods of sampling and identifying elder mistreatment victims in the community should be developed in order to improve the validity and comprehensiveness of elder mistreatment occurrence estimates.
From page 5...
... These methods should be able to detect a broad range of categories of mistreatment and be highly accurate and efficiently deployed. Candidate techniques might include improved questionnaire designs; record linkage to other clinical, public health, social, and legal databases; automated alerts based on concurrent clinical records; and previously defined risk status based on prescreening methods.
From page 6...
... · Intervention or prevention research in existing health care environments that come into contact with mistreated elclers, such as hospitals, emergency departments, and emergency response services, should be a priority, as it takes advantage of the existing expertise and resources of these services.
From page 7...
... Knowledge about elder mistreatment will advance only if its importance is recognized by policy makers and funding agencies, if stable research support is provided, and if useful theories and methods are successfully extrapolated from relevant disciplines and adjacent fields of research. Recognizing that elder mistreatment crosses categorical boundaries in both health research and social science research, federal funding agencies (e.g., the National Institute on Aging, the Administration on Developmental Disabilities and Rehabilitation Research, and the National Institute of Justice)
From page 8...
... in this respect, protecting older people from mistreatment is an important element of the broad challenge of ensuring quality services in long-term care. While elder mistreatment has attracted sustained efforts from practitioners and some interest from policy makers over the past two decades, it has not received concomitant attention from researchers or from the agencies that provide research funding.


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