Elder Abuse: Data Sources

CDC Data Sources

• National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program (NEISS-AIP)
  NEISS-AIP provides nationally representative data about all types and causes of nonfatal injuries treated in hospital emergency departments throughout the United States. CDC uses NEISS-AIP data to generate national estimates of nonfatal injuries. See also NEISS Coding Manual and data highlights.
• National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey
  The National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey collects data on the use and provision of ambulatory care services in hospital emergency and outpatient departments.
• National Violent Death Reporting System
  The National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) is a state-based surveillance system developed by CDC. CDC currently funds 32 states to gather, share, and link state-level data on violent deaths through the NVDRS. These data inform the development, implementation, and evaluation of violence prevention strategies, which can ultimately save lives.
• WISQARS
  WISQARS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, pronounced “whiskers”) is an interactive database that provides national injury-related morbidity and mortality data used for research and for making informed public health decisions.

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Other Federal Data Sources

• Administration on Aging/National Center for Elder Abuse—The Availability and Utility of Interdisciplinary Data on Elder Abuse: A White Paper for the National Center on Elder Abuse [PDF 778KB]
  While the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) has collected and analyzed state adult protective services data, the number of additional data elements that might be available through health care, long term care, criminal justice, fiduciary, and legal services networks has remained largely unexplored. Therefore, the NCEA sought the development of a white paper examining such data elements, their scope and limitations, and outlining their potential use by the United States Administration on Aging (AoA), other federal agencies, and elder abuse professionals and advocates. In response, the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging (ABA Commission) conducted exploratory research on a wide range of possible data sources. This white paper presents and evaluates the results.
• Crimes Against the Elderly, 2003-2013
  Presents estimates on property and fatal and nonfatal violent victimization against persons age 65 or older from 2003-2013
• National Crime Victimization Survey
  The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) provides information on criminal victimization in the United States. Each year, data are obtained from a nationally representative sample of 77,200 households comprising nearly 134,000 persons on the frequency, characteristics, and consequences of criminal victimization in the United States. The survey enables the Bureau of Justice Statistics to estimate the likelihood of victimization by rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault, theft, household burglary, and motor vehicle theft. This information is provided for the population as a whole as well as for segments of the population such as women, the elderly, members of various racial groups, city dwellers, or other groups. The NCVS provides the largest national forum for victims to describe the impact of crime and characteristics of violent offenders.
• National Incident-Based Reporting System
  The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) is an incident-based reporting system in which agencies collect data on each single crime occurrence. NIBRS data come from local, state, and federal automated records’ systems. The NIBRS collects data on each single incident and arrest within 22 offense categories made up of 46 specific crimes called Group A offenses. For each of the offenses coming to the attention of law enforcement, specified types of facts about each crime are reported. In addition to the Group A offenses, there are 11 Group B offense categories for which only arrest data are reported. The NIBRS furnishes information on nearly every major criminal justice issue facing law enforcement today, including terrorism, white collar crime, weapons offenses, missing children where criminality is involved, drug/narcotics offenses, drug involvement in all offenses, hate crimes, spousal abuse, abuse of the elderly, child abuse, domestic violence, juvenile crime/gangs, parental abduction, organized crime, pornography/child pornography, driving under the influence, and alcohol-related offenses.

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