scholarly journals Applying Evidence-Based Violence Prevention Strategies to Elder Abuse in Public Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 45-46
Author(s):  
Carolyn Ham ◽  
Cory Bolkan

Abstract Elder abuse is a growing problem with significant public health implications. Because elder abuse shares root causes with other types of violence (e.g., suicidal behavior, intimate partner violence), awareness of elder abuse as a violence prevention priority is rising among public health professionals. Major limitations, however, affect delivery of effective population-level primary prevention for elder abuse, necessitating increased community partnerships. In Washington State, the Department of Health’s Injury and Violence Prevention Section and the Department of Social and Health Services Adult Protective Services Division are leveraging existing strategies to increase identification and reporting of potential elder abuse from falls and injury prevention partners (i.e., opioids, suicide). We describe: (1) challenges and opportunities in creating unique cross-program collaborations, (2) the combined education and outreach efforts of this partnership, and (3) strategies for sustained collaboration. Additionally, we share results of a scoping literature review on evidence-based violence prevention strategies applicable to elder abuse between 2015 – 2019. In the Pubmed and Academic Search Complete databases, the following terms were searched: elder abuse prevention, primary prevention, shared risk and protective factors. Only six articles were identified that addressed primary prevention efforts. Researchers note that primary prevention of elder abuse is poorly understood and challenges exist in applying methods from other types of violence. Education for key community members on identification of abuse is a promising intervention targeting shared risk and protective factors for public health to pursue. Cross-sector community partnerships and rigorous evaluation of primary prevention approaches are needed.

Author(s):  
Danuta Wasserman ◽  
Vladimir Carli

Evidence has shown that during times of crises, suicide rates can decrease but tend to increase as the crisis alleviates. The consequences of the global COVID-19 pandemic, whether direct or indirect, will be far reaching. In this chapter the impact of the pandemic on the risk and protective factors of suicide, grouped according to the socio-ecological model at individual, relationship, community, and society levels, is described. To prevent unnecessary suicides, the effects of Covid-19 pandemic, on health care and public health suicide prevention strategies, and recommendations for implementation are presented.


Author(s):  
Thomas Simon ◽  
Kimberly Hurvitz

Violence, including child maltreatment, youth violence, intimate partner violence, and sexual violence, is a significant public health problem in the United States. A public health approach can help providers understand the health burden from violence, evaluate evidence for prevention strategies, and learn where to turn for information about planning and implementing prevention strategies for this preventable problem. For the past three decades, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published “Healthy People” objectives for the next decade. The Healthy People 2020 initiative includes 13 measurable objectives related to violence prevention, one of which was selected as a Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicator. Progress to achieve these objectives can save thousands of lives, reduce the suffering of victims and their families, and decrease financial cost to the law enforcement and healthcare systems. The role that nurses can and do play in violence prevention is critical and extends beyond just caring for victims to also include preventing violence before it happens. This article summarizes the violence prevention objectives in Healthy People 2020 and the resources for prevention available to support nurses and others as they move prevention efforts forward in communities to stop violence before it starts.


2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (9) ◽  
pp. 1363-1367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ajit Shah ◽  
Ravi Bhat ◽  
Sofia Zarate-Escudero

The elderly population size is increasing worldwide due to prolonged life expectancy and falling birth rates. Traditionally, suicide rates increase with age. For example, a recent cross-national study of 62 developing and developed countries reported an increase in suicide rates with aging in males and females in 25 and 27 countries respectively (Shah, 2007a). Thus, suicides in the elderly are an important public health concern. While much is known about proximal (individual level) risk and protective factors for elderly suicides (e.g. Conwell et al., 1991; Cattell and Jolley, 1995; Harwood et al., 2001), less is known about more distal (societal or population level) risk and protective factors (Rehkopf and Buka, 2006). Moreover, detailed knowledge of these distal factors may have greater public health relevance for the development of comprehensive prevention strategies (Knox et al., 2004).


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S544-S544
Author(s):  
Maria Yefimova ◽  
Carolyn Pickering ◽  
Christopher Maxwell ◽  
Frank Puga ◽  
Tami Sullivan

Abstract The stress-process model suggests a variety of factors related to the stress-experience as important in the formation of outcomes including elder abuse and neglect (EAN). Multi-level modeling with days (n=831) nested within caregivers (N=50) was used to evaluate relationships between theoretically-based risk and protective factors and odds of EAN. Disruptions in the daily routine are a significant risk factor for abuse and neglect. Participating in a meaningful activity at least twice a day with the care recipient is a significant protective factor for neglect (OR=0.19; CI=0.06-0.64; p=0.01), but not abuse. Hypotheses that spending the full day together would increase the risk of EAN, and receipt of instrumental support and caregiver participation in self-care would decrease risk, were not supported. Findings demonstrate that the risk of EAN varies from day-to-day in the presence and absence of contextual factors. Moreover, abuse and neglect may have different etiologic pathways.


Author(s):  
Jess Haines ◽  
Ken P. Kleinman ◽  
Sheryl L. Rifas-Shiman ◽  
Alison E. Field ◽  
S. Bryn Austin

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 359-369.e3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dianne R. Neumark-Sztainer ◽  
Melanie M. Wall ◽  
Jess I. Haines ◽  
Mary T. Story ◽  
Nancy E. Sherwood ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stevie Chancellor ◽  
Steven A Sumner ◽  
Corinne David-Ferdon ◽  
Tahirah Ahmad ◽  
Munmun De Choudhury

BACKGROUND Online communities provide support for individuals looking for help with suicidal ideation and crisis. As community data are increasingly used to devise machine learning models to infer who might be at risk, there have been limited efforts to identify both risk and protective factors in web-based posts. These annotations can enrich and augment computational assessment approaches to identify appropriate intervention points, which are useful to public health professionals and suicide prevention researchers. OBJECTIVE This qualitative study aims to develop a valid and reliable annotation scheme for evaluating risk and protective factors for suicidal ideation in posts in suicide crisis forums. METHODS We designed a valid, reliable, and clinically grounded process for identifying risk and protective markers in social media data. This scheme draws on prior work on construct validity and the social sciences of measurement. We then applied the scheme to annotate 200 posts from r/SuicideWatch—a Reddit community focused on suicide crisis. RESULTS We documented our results on producing an annotation scheme that is consistent with leading public health information coding schemes for suicide and advances attention to protective factors. Our study showed high internal validity, and we have presented results that indicate that our approach is consistent with findings from prior work. CONCLUSIONS Our work formalizes a framework that incorporates construct validity into the development of annotation schemes for suicide risk on social media. This study furthers the understanding of risk and protective factors expressed in social media data. This may help public health programming to prevent suicide and computational social science research and investigations that rely on the quality of labels for downstream machine learning tasks.


10.2196/24471 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. e24471
Author(s):  
Stevie Chancellor ◽  
Steven A Sumner ◽  
Corinne David-Ferdon ◽  
Tahirah Ahmad ◽  
Munmun De Choudhury

Background Online communities provide support for individuals looking for help with suicidal ideation and crisis. As community data are increasingly used to devise machine learning models to infer who might be at risk, there have been limited efforts to identify both risk and protective factors in web-based posts. These annotations can enrich and augment computational assessment approaches to identify appropriate intervention points, which are useful to public health professionals and suicide prevention researchers. Objective This qualitative study aims to develop a valid and reliable annotation scheme for evaluating risk and protective factors for suicidal ideation in posts in suicide crisis forums. Methods We designed a valid, reliable, and clinically grounded process for identifying risk and protective markers in social media data. This scheme draws on prior work on construct validity and the social sciences of measurement. We then applied the scheme to annotate 200 posts from r/SuicideWatch—a Reddit community focused on suicide crisis. Results We documented our results on producing an annotation scheme that is consistent with leading public health information coding schemes for suicide and advances attention to protective factors. Our study showed high internal validity, and we have presented results that indicate that our approach is consistent with findings from prior work. Conclusions Our work formalizes a framework that incorporates construct validity into the development of annotation schemes for suicide risk on social media. This study furthers the understanding of risk and protective factors expressed in social media data. This may help public health programming to prevent suicide and computational social science research and investigations that rely on the quality of labels for downstream machine learning tasks.


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