Australian Institute of Family Studies

AIFS was  commissioned by the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s Department to conduct the Elder Abuse National Research Strengthening the Evidence Base – Stage One project. The project was designed to build on the existing empirical work carried out by AIFS in Elder Abuse: Understanding issues, frameworks and responses.

The project comprised three components, specifically:

• Component One – working in conjunction with the National Ageing Research Institute (NARI) to engage with key stakeholders to develop a nationally accepted and usable Australian definition of elder abuse
• Component Two – working with the Social Research Centre (SRC) to develop and test instruments to measure elder abuse against the Australian definition
• Component Three – working with the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) to develop a data analysis plan and conduct secondary data analysis to answer key research questions on elder abuse. 

The project commenced with a series of workshops across Australia with key stakeholders and professionals in this field. This was followed by a number of surveys with the elder community, general public and service providers to refine the definition of elder abuse, which informed component three which aimed to develop a comprehensive picture of the contexts, dynamics and risk factors associated with elder abuse by interrogating existing data sources.

Contact

The Elder Abuse National Research Project team

Email: eanr@aifs.gov.au

Featured image: © GettyImages/azndc