Estimated Incidence of .
Elder Abuse, Neglect, and/or Self-Neglect in 1996.
The best national estimate is that a total of 551,011 elderly persons, aged 60 and over, experienced abuse, neglect, and/or self-neglect in domestic settings in 1996. Of this total, 115,110 (21 percent) were reported to and substantiated by APS agencies, with the remaining 435,901 (79 percent) not being reported to APS agencies. One can conclude from these figures that almost four times as many new incidents of elder abuse, neglect, and/or self-neglect were unreported than those that were reported to and substantiated by APS agencies in 1996. The standard error suggests that nationwide as many as 787,027 elders or as few as 314,995 elders could have been abused, neglected, and/or self-neglecting in domestic settings in 1996.
Abuse and Neglect Reported by APS Agencies .
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Characteristics of Victims of Domestic Elder Abuse.
Of 236,479 reports of abuse, neglect, and self-neglect to APS in 1996, 48.7 percent, or .
115,110 reports were substantiated after investigation, 39.3 percent were unsubstantiated, and 8.2 percent were still under investigation at the end of 1996. The remaining 3.8 percent of reports had other outcomes (e.g., suspected victim died, could not be located, or had moved away).
Of the 115,110 substantiated reports in 1996 for which information was available, 61.6 percent (70,942) were reports of incidents in which elders were maltreated by other people (also called "perpetrators"), while the remaining 38.4 percent (44,168) were incidents of self-neglecting elders. Of the 70,942 unduplicated substantiated reports of elder abuse attributable to perpetrators (which excludes self-neglect), the most common types were: neglect (34,525), emotional/ psychological abuse (25,142), financial/material exploitation (21,427), and physical abuse (18,144). .
While the substantiation rate for all types of investigations of elder abuse combined was 48.
