Understanding and awareness of elder abuse as a significant problem is well understood among key government and non-government agencies within South Australia, including its causes, indicators and effects. Each of the agencies interviewed collects data on cases of elder abuse to some degree. However, with the exception of the Aged Rights Advocacy Service (ARAS), every agency interviewed expressed some level of dismay at the current practices around, and capacity for, the collation and analysis of data held by agencies. With the exception of ARAS, there currently are no systematic processes for collating de-identified data for analysis at the agency level, and privacy laws are seen to inhibit the sharing of data between agencies.
This project was initially proposed as an area for further research in the South Australian Government’s Strategy to Safeguard the Rights of Older South Australians Action Plan 2015 -2021. The intention was to undertake a baseline prevalence study in South Australia, facilitated by a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of South Australia, ‘to identify how we can best capture the data we need to show how common elder abuse is in our state, and to clarify the risk factors in our community.’
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