Examining Elder Abuse using a socio-ecological lens: developing targeted interventions

Abstract

Elder abuse affects people from all walks of life, including people with dementia, those living in residential care, and those with good decision-making capacity living in their own homes, with an average prevalence of 14.3% of the older population. There are many different risk factors for elder abuse, and some of these also vary by type of abuse. Risk factors for people experiening elder abuse include being 75 years old or older, having a physical or mental disability, and coming from an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander background or culturally or linguistically diverse community. Also, women generally are at higher risk of abuse than men. Past lifetime abuse may also be a risk factor for future abuse, and people who have experienced abuse as children have been reported to have increased vulnerability to further intra-familial and extra-familial abuse later in life.

Socio-ecological models and systems theory are often applied in social work as useful frameworks for the analysis and understanding of complex social issues. It is suggested that responses and interventions to elder abuse utilise a socio-ecological framework that takes into account the complex characteristics of victims, perpetrators, the relationship between the two, as well as contextual factors of family, living arrangements and community and societal influences. It is acknowledged that elder abuse is a complex phenomenon, with Australian responses to it somewhat fragmented and under-developed. Applying this perspective to elder abuse is useful in allowing examination of factors related to individual older people experiencing abuse and mistreatment and perpetrators of abuse within context of the relationship, family, community and society.