32 HealtH Matters
rEsEarCH
NEw cENTrE To
coNTrIbuTE To
rESEArcH oN
tHe aBUse OF
OlDer PeOPle
The National centre for the Protection of older
People (NcPoP) aims to develop a knowledge
base of Irish and international research, and
education and training resources on the occurrence,
prevalence, detection and response to the abuse of
older people. dr attracta lafferty, centre Director,
outlines the importance of its work.
W
ith funds from the Health service iMPortanCe oF the work oF figure for the prevalence of elder abuse.
executive, we were given the the Centre International research indicates that
opportunity to set up and establish a While undertaking a number of research between one and four per cent of
National Centre for the Protection of Older projects, our primary focus for this year is over-65s experience some form of abuse
People. the Centre was established in to conduct a national prevalence study of in the community. that equates to
response to the problem of elder abuse elder abuse where we plan to interview somewhere between 5,000 and 21,000
and to the recommendations made by 2,000 older people. this will provide us older Irish people experiencing abuse at
the Working Group on elder abuse in the with, for the first time in Ireland, a baseline any one time.
report ‘Protecting Our Future’. this type of research is vitally important
We are focusing on a programme in informing and underpinning the
of research examining elder abuse in response strategy to elder abuse in Ireland,
Ireland, which will result in research particularly as the older population is
outputs contributing to the development
“While undertaking a
estimated to increase from about 468,000
of policy and practice in relation to elder to approximately 1.4 million by 2041. We
abuse. We are fortunate to benefit from number of research feel that these figures are important as
a collaborative interdisciplinary research
team at the Centre, which gives
projects, our primary focus
there is the risk that the rate of elder abuse
will increase in tandem with these figures.
particular strength to our work as it
for this year is to conduct a
at the Centre, we are also engaging
brings together a unique combination of in other areas of research such as
expertise from nursing, sociology, social national prevalence study exploring the feasibility of researching the
work, public health, law and economics.
In November 2009, the NCPOP was
of elder abuse where we
experiences of abused older people, which
would provide the older person with an
officially launched by the Minister for
plan to interview 2,000
opportunity to have their voice heard. this
Health and Children, Mary Harney tD, piece of research would give us a valuable
at University College Dublin. older people.” insight into the coping skills and support
HM Iss6.1 p1-70.indd 32 12/03/2010 15:15:08
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