Elder Abuse Policy: Causes, Stakeholders, and Recommendations
This paper examines elder abuse as a growing public health and criminal justice concern, drawing on World Health Organization data and U.S. legal frameworks to define the problem and assess its scope. It surveys risk factors at individual, communal, and socio-cultural levels, and identifies the key stakeholders — including law enforcement, politicians, NGOs, communities, and families — whose coordinated engagement is essential to an effective policy response. The paper concludes with a set of concrete policy recommendations covering national education programmes, judicial reform, federal agency funding, research capacity, and legislative action aimed at reducing elder abuse and protecting the dignity and well-being of older citizens.
- Introduction and Definition of Elder Abuse: Legal and public-health definitions of elder abuse
- Magnitude of Elder Abuse: Prevalence, risk factors, and institutional data
- Stakeholders in Elder Abuse Policy: Roles of law enforcement, NGOs, families, communities
- Policy Recommendations: Twelve concrete actions to reduce elder abuse
- Conclusion: Normative appeal to social responsibility
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What makes this paper effective
- Grounds its argument in authoritative sources — WHO fact sheets and U.S. penal code definitions — giving the policy analysis a credible empirical foundation.
- Moves logically from definition and scope to stakeholder mapping and concrete recommendations, giving the paper a clear policy-memo structure.
- The stakeholder section is notably specific, naming distinct actors (NGOs, politicians, civilians, families) and explaining the distinct role each plays rather than treating "society" as a monolith.
- Statistical evidence (nursing home survey data, case-count projections, perpetrator breakdowns) grounds abstract claims in measurable reality.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates stakeholder analysis as a policy tool — systematically identifying every category of actor involved in an issue, then mapping each actor's unique leverage point and responsibility. This technique is central to public-policy writing and shows how multi-sector coordination is required when no single institution can address a complex social problem alone.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a definitional section that establishes legal and public-health framings of elder abuse, then expands into a data-heavy magnitude section covering prevalence, risk factors, and institutional settings. A stakeholder section names eight categories of actors and specifies each group's role. A recommendations section offers twelve discrete policy actions. A brief conclusion closes with a normative appeal to social responsibility.
Introduction and Definition of Elder Abuse
In the last three decades, incidents of elder abuse have increased greatly, leading to greater needs among victims and creating an urgent demand for sound policy to combat this problem. A structured framework is therefore required — one that educates the public, trains professionals specializing in this field, strengthens adult protective measures, increases prosecution, and removes barriers to effective policy implementation.
In order to devise a policy for elder abuse, it is necessary to understand how the term is defined. The World Health Organization defines elder abuse as:
"A single, or repeated act, or lack of appropriate action, occurring within any relationship where there is an expectation of trust which causes harm or distress to an older person."
From the perspective of police and prosecution, elder abuse encompasses any crime involving individuals aged sixty or older. These cases are filed under general offenses, financial exploitation, and criminal acts. Financial exploitation is defined as the improper and unauthorized use of a victim's assets, whether financial or physical in nature. Domestic violence, in this context, refers to any act of violence committed by a family member or caretaker against the victim.
As per New York Penal Law, elder abuse encompasses felonies, misdemeanors, and acts of violence against individuals aged sixty and older. Of all these, felonies are the most serious in nature, involving endangerment of an elder citizen's welfare through possession of a weapon, sexual abuse, stolen property, embezzlement, and related offenses.
According to the WHO fact sheet published in 2011, elder abuse is a common problem in both developing and developed countries, yet this issue has remained largely unaddressed globally. WHO findings estimate that approximately 4–6% of elder citizens experience various forms of violence and abuse domestically. This maltreatment tends to cause serious physical harm and long-term mental distress. As the elder population continues to grow, the problem is expected to worsen (WHO, 2011). WHO projects that from 1995 to 2025, the world's elder population will double in size, reaching an estimated 1.2 billion by 2025.
References
Bonnie, R. J., & Robert, B. (2011). Elder mistreatment: Abuse, neglect, and exploitation in an aging America.
Macolini, R. M. (2006). Elder abuse policy: Considerations in research and legislation.
World Health Organization. (2011). Elder maltreatment: Fact sheet. Retrieved from
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