Building Late-Life Resilience to Prevent Elder Abuse A Randomized Controlled Pilot Study of the EMPOWER Program

By Jennifer Yahner, Jeanette Hussemann, and Erica Henderson

Over the past two decades, as the proportion of older Americans has increased, so too have instances of elder abuse, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; financial exploitation; and caregiver neglect (Ervin and Henderson 2020; NCEA 2021). The most recent national survey estimates show at least 1 in 10 community-residing older adults experience elder abuse each year (Acierno et al. 2010; Rosay and Mulford 2017), which translates to over 7 million Americans annually. Rates of abuse are magnified for older adults with the least financial and social resources, including those with low incomes, living in isolated rural communities, and facing structural barriers such as systemic racism (Jervis et al. 2016; Joseph and Gonzalez 2018). Emerging research on the COVID-19 pandemic prompts even greater concern for elder abuse: the virus has disproportionately affected older adults, resulting in increased social isolation, physical health impairment, and exposure to COVID-related fraud (Makaroun, Bachrach, and Rosland 2020). Recognizing the urgent need to develop and rigorously evaluate programs aimed at preventing elder abuse, the US Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice funded a demonstration from 2017 to 2021 during which researchers from the Urban Institute and practitioners at the Phoenixbased Area Agency on Aging, Region One (“the Area Agency”) co-developed an elder abuse prevention program in Maricopa County, Arizona, which Urban’s team then evaluated through a randomized controlled pilot study. This multiphase demonstration included an initial planning phase (the activities of which are summarized in Hussemann and Yahner [2019]) and a subsequent pilot study, which is the focus of this report.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2022. 21p.