Evaluation of Data Linkage Methodology to Improve Estimates of Elder Mistreatment

描述(由申请人提供)：虐待老年人是一个重要的、未得到充分研究和报告的公共卫生问题，鉴于美国老年人口的迅速增长，这是国家老龄研究所的一个高度优先事项。该项目将评估成功地应用数据联系方法改进亲密伴侣暴力和虐待儿童的估计的可行性，以改进虐待老年人的发生率和流行率的估计。目前有提供关于报告的老年人虐待的信息的数据库，但尚未充分利用这些数据库来提供国家和地方对报告的虐待老年人的程度和与虐待有关的风险因素的了解。将把州一级的数据与全国范围内普遍存在的数据库联系起来。这些数据库包括成人保护服务、医院急诊科和医院出院、执法/刑事司法、长期护理和国家暴力死亡报告系统的国际扶轮组成部分。将获得身体、性和心理虐待的受害者以及被忽视和经济剥削的受害者的无重复计数。居住在社区和院舍中的长者将被包括在内。这项研究将通过结合不同报告来源报告的虐待老年人案件的数据，尽可能提供已知案件的最完整情况，填补知识上的一个重要空白。还将评估受害和犯罪的风险因素，以用于侦测以前未被承认的案件。将采用捕获-再捕获方法来估计未报告病例的数量。此外，还将召集一个多学科的老年人虐待评估工作组，为每种类型的虐待老年人制定标准化的操作定义，这些定义可以应用于不同的学科。拟议的方法有望成为可在全国范围内应用的方法，并与调查数据一起使用，显著改善对虐待老年人的发生率和流行率的估计。 这个应用程序将填补我们知识中的一个重要空白，它将不同报告来源报告的虐待老年人案件的数据结合在一起，为我们提供尽可能完整的已知案件情况。在开展这项工作之前，我们将不知道来自个别来源的案件在所有报告的虐待老年人案件中所占比例有多大。有了这些信息和未来调查数据的收集，我们最终将更清楚地了解人口中虐待老年人的程度，并拥有制定和针对更有效的公共卫生干预措施所必需的信息。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Elder mistreatment is an important, understudied and under-reported public health problem and a high priority for the National Institute on Aging in light of the burgeoning United States elderly population. This project will evaluate the feasibility of applying data linkage methodology used successfully to improve estimates of intimate partner violence and child maltreatment to improve estimates of incidence and prevalence of elder mistreatment. Databases that provide information on reported elder mistreatment currently exist but have not been utilized to full advantage to provide both a national and local understanding of the extent of reported elder mistreatment and risk factors associated with mistreatment. Linkage of state-level data from databases generally available nationally will be conducted. The databases include Adult Protective Services, hospital Emergency Department and Hospital Discharge, Law Enforcement/Criminal Justice, Long Term Care, and the RI component of the National Violent Death Reporting System. Unduplicated counts of victims of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse as well as victims of neglect and financial exploitation will be obtained. Elders residing in both community and institutional settings will be included. This study will fill an important gap in knowledge by combining data on reported cases of elder mistreatment across reporting sources to afford the most complete picture possible of known cases. Risk factors for victimization and perpetration will also be assessed for use in detection of previously unrecognized cases. Capture-recapture methodology will be utilized to estimate the number of unreported cases. In addition, a multi-disciplinary Elder Mistreatment Assessment Working Group will be convened to develop standardized operational definitions for each type of elder mistreatment that can be applied across disciplines. The proposed methodology holds promise as methodology that could be applied nationally and, used in concert with survey data, significantly improve estimates of the incidence and prevalence of elder mistreatment. This application will fill an important gap in our knowledge by combining data on reported cases of elder mistreatment across reporting sources to afford us the most complete picture possible of known cases. Until this work is undertaken we will not know how representative cases from individual sources are of the population of all reported cases of elder mistreatment that occur. With this information and collection of survey data in the future, we will finally have a clearer picture of the extent of elder mistreatment in the population and have the information essential to develop and target more effective public health interventions.