Social Marketing Efforts Related to Elder Maltreatment

Despite over 30 years of research and efforts, elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation (collectively, elder maltreatment) are still considered under-recognized and under-reported problems. Many advocates and professionals working with victims attribute this lack of progress to insufficient public awareness efforts and messages. Seeking to address this gap, the U.S, Administration on Aging (AoA), through its National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), awarded funding from 2007-2009 to expand its efforts develop nationwide attention to the issue of elder maltreatment. This presentation will discuss the results of the NCEA's work to (a) develop the first national elder abuse prevention health communication campaign, which included an inventory of existing elder abuse public awareness campaigns, a meta-analysis of those campaigns in terms of theories of effective health communication and social marketing campaigns, and field research to assess popularly-held beliefs about risk, causes, and prevention strategies; (b) enhance the use of web technology to communicate information about elder maltreatment; and (c) provide targeted training to health professionals on the identification and appropriate response to suspected elder maltreatment. A discussion of plans for future efforts in the arena of health communications related to elder maltreatment is also included.