The National Elder Abuse Incidence Study

28 Pages 6948 Words

task of the NEAIS was to develop standardized definitions for each specific type of abuse and neglect, which are provided later in this executive summary.
Prior attempts to generate national data on domestic elder abuse in the United States relied on state-compiled statistics of suspected abuse, with considerable variations in definitions and comprehensiveness of reporting systems. These earlier studies, frequently designed to estimate the prevalence (i.e., the total number of cases at a designated time period) of elder abuse rather than the incidence (i.e., the new cases occurring over a specific period of time), varied considerably in their research questions, methodology, sources of data, analysis, and findings. Accordingly, comparisons of earlier research with the NEAIS findings should be done cautiously.
The NEAIS gathered data on domestic elder abuse, neglect, and self-neglect through a nationally representative sample of 20 counties in 15 states. For each county sampled, the study collected data from two sources: (1) reports from the l...