Even though there is a growing recognition of elder abuse in the United States and elsewhere, the authors note that "the field has generated few theory-based explanations of what causes elder abuse and how best to respond to it. This paper reports the findings of two studies funded by the US National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in an effort to begin to fill this void. The theoretical directions suggested in this paper are intended to spur the critique of existing theories and facilitate the development of new theories that will enhance our understanding of elder abuse. This paper addresses only a subset of the various types of elder abuse; future work should attend to other forms of elder maltreatment (e.g., psychological, sexual) not addressed here." (from p.3)

Research in brief, July 2013