Kendon Conrad, Ph.D., Madelyn Iris, Ph.D., and Jessica Mazza, MSPH presented on the development of the Elder Abuse Decision Support System (EADSS). Nationally, elder mistreatment and financial exploitation continue to be under-reported, resulting in inaccurate prevalence and incidence statistics, and increased suffering of older adults. Important systemic factors contributing to this problem include lack of valid, standardized assessment procedures, and state-specific definitions and scope of various types of abuse, neglect, and exploitation. Advances in assessment methodology and computer technology offer promising solutions to improve the identification and tracking of elder mistreatment and exploitation, as well as the reduction of some barriers related to the responsive assessment and delivery of services to victims. This presentation describes the development of EADSS, an Elder Abuse Decision Support System, that uses standardized measures and short screening forms to assess elder mistreatment and exploitation, as well as expected system outcomes such as increased convenience and efficiency and improved quality of assessments. The presentation focuses on the Older Adult Financial Exploitation Measure to illustrate the methods used to develop items. (Materials: slide presentation)
