Variety of Abuse Towards Elders

Abuse towards elder people is a very delicate and unknown topic that not many people pay much attention to. Elderly abuse is any type of harassment or mistreating of an elder. The Adult Protective Services organization (APS) is one of the organizations that helps us stay informed on what is going on with our elderly population and how people are mistreating our elders. They give us information from the number of cases reported and known to the types of abuse the older people suffer. This is a topic we should all be aware of and we will give information about this topic to make people more aware that elderly abuse is a problem and that it does occur here in California. Our story map will furthermore explain different types of abuse that have occurred. It will also demonstrate the number of elders being abused by each different category in the state of California and to be more specific, in each county.

The indicators are the different types of abuses we will focus on in this story map.

These cases demonstrate the total number of cases that are of abuse towards elders.

Hotspot analysis is a spatial analysis tool that identifies clusters of spatial phenomena. A hotspot is an area that has higher concentration of events compared to the expected value given a random distribution of events. For statistically significant positive z-scores, the larger the z-score is, the more intense the clustering of high values (hot spot). For statistically significant negative z-scores, the smaller the z-score is, the more intense the clustering of low values (cold spot).

This map demonstrates that there are a lot of cases on the southern part of California of completed cases of elderly abuse. The hot spot demonstrates a hot spot confidence of 99%, 95%, and 90% of cases being found. On the northern part of California, we see cold spots of 99%, 95%, and 90% of cases not being found. To begin with the areas of cases being found are in the Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino county. The maps shows a big portion of red spots with the confidence level of 99% and around the red area there are dark orange spots. Meaning that there is a lot of cases of abuse towards elderly people that is happening in the southern part of California. Compared the northern part it shows us blue spots where there is very little cases to zero cases of abuse towards elderly people. All around California there are yellow spots indicating there is zero cases completed of elderly abuse on people.

This indicator is for the “types of abuse perpetrated by others”, which are based on the number of elderly abuse cases that have been reported within California.

In this map, we can see that the main hotspots are primarily located in Los Angeles County. The solid green hotpots and the layer beneath them, which is colored dark blue, demonstrate that Southern California has the highest number of elderly abuse cases in 2018 when compared to the rest of the state. This data is roughly similar to the other map that covered the number of sexual elderly abuse cases in California in 2018. The rest of the hotspots are evenly spread out across California and the types of abuse cases seem to be much more prominent around the Los Angeles County, which can be seen with the larger green hotspots.

The following indicator is about physical abuse cases found in the state of CA for 2018. The number of cases shown in the map below is focused on the elderly population abused physically.

As we see in this map, the regions are colored with three colors. These colors are green, gray and lilac and the cases are indicated from lowest to highest. The green color indicates the lowest cases reported while the lilac color indicates the highest number of cases found. The gray color indicates the average number which is 23.8. The highest number is >74 and the lowest <0. The regions or counties with the symbol in blue of a target & a punch images are the hotspots of the map. In December of 2018, the county of Los Angeles reported 334 cases of physical abuse. A previous year in the same month the cases were 312. However, the map is showing the data from the year of 2018 only. If we analyze the map carefully we are going to find that Southern California has higher cases found than Northeast California. The highest cases reported were found in the counties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego.

This indicator is for sexual abuse cases, which are the number of elderly abuse cases that are primarily focused on the number of sexual abuse cases that have been reported.

In this map, we can see the locations where the highest number of sexual elderly abuse cases have happened in 2018. It appears that there a good amount of sexual abuse cases throughout the state of California. As we scan the map, there starts to become an increase in cases when we start heading down to Southern California. Specifically, we can see that the Los Angeles County has reported the highest number of sexual abuse cases in California, which is demonstrated with the hotspots areas represented by the black stars. When we focus on the layer underneath the black star hotspots, it still shows us that in 2018, the Los Angeles County is filled with a large number of sexual abuse cases in California, which is displayed by the dark blue portions of the map. 

This indicator is Financial cases which are the number of cases of elderly abuse with a focus on the financial number of cases occurred.

In this map, we can see what are the major spots of where the financial abuse cases occurred. Not only that, but it illustrates where the least number of cases are and where the "hotspots" or the main places where financial abuse have happened. For example, Los Angeles county has one of the highest number of cases within all of California. The hotspots are demonstrated with the bigger green circles. If we hide the layer of hotspots the layer beneath it shows the counties that have the numbers of how many cases per county and the darker the blue the more cases of financial abuses have taken place. Which demonstrates, like the hotspot analysis with the bigger green circles, that southern California has more financial abuse towards elders than the rest of the counties. The bigger the circles means that it is more likely for more cases to appear with a 99% confidence interval which proves that it is more probable to have more financial abuse cases in Southern California counties.

This map illustrates cases of neglect that have been reported in different regions of California in 2018, in which caretakers of elders failed to care for them properly or mistreated them. Data was taken from the Adult Protective Services organization which they collected for 2017.

As you can see, this map shows regions in which the most and least cases of elderly neglect occurred in 2018. The areas colored in red show the most reported cases and “hot-spots” or areas that these types of cases are significantly likely to occur with 99% confidence. Areas shaded in dark green are areas where these cases are significantly less likely to occur with 99% confidence, also known as “cold spots.” Areas shaded in light yellow are not significant. According to this hot-spot map, cases of neglect are more likely to occur in Southern parts of California, since many cases have been reported in that region. We can also conclude that cases are less likely to occur in some Northern counties, as they have little to none reported cases.

This indicator illustrates all the cases that exist on abandonment of elders, in a form of abuse towards elders, in the state of California in the year 2018.

Through this map, we demonstrate where most of the cases are placed or have taken place. This map is split by counties throughout all of California. The highest number of cases are found in Southern California. The bigger red circles show the hotspots of where most cases are found and where it is more prone to happen. For example, the big circle like in Los Angeles County, there is a 99% confidence that there will be more cases in the future. Now on the other hand the smaller the circle, means that it is not significant and are cold spots since it is more likely that it will not occur in that county. Not only that but the darker the purple means that those are the places where there are more cases of abandonment of elders in California. As we can see, elderly abuse through abandonment is a problem in California but with a focus in counties such as Los Angeles, Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego and most southern California counties.

The following indicator is about isolation abuse cases found in the state of CA for 2018. In the map below, the number of cases is focused on the elderly population that was abused by isolation.

As we see in this map, there are many regions colored with three colors that are purple, gray and white. The average of cases reported or found is 11.2 and the way that the map is classified is the following: white <0, gray 11.2 (average), and purple >22 cases found. The hotspots are found by a symbol with the letter “IS” inside of a white oval. The counties with more notable hotspots are found in the Southern of the State. The regions with more cold spots are found in the in the middle of th state. If we compare in the map the counties with more cases are Los Angeles, Riverside, and San Francisco.

This indicator is about the number of cases that are on the abduction of elders in the years 2017 and 2018 in California.

In the map we are able to see cases of abduction throughout California There are some spots where the hot spot confidence of 99% and cold spots with 99 % In the map we are able to see in the southern area a hot spot with 95% and 90 % confidence where most cases are found. The northern half of California is not significant because of cases not being found that side of the map. There are also some cold spot but not too many on the southern side of California. The map indicates in the southern part of the area in Los Angeles area there is a hot spot which colors are light orange and dark orange. Meaning that there are more cases of elderly abductions in that area than anywhere in California. There are a couple cases where it stands out with level confidence of 90%. On the northern part of California where there is a big part of the section that is yellow indicating that there is zero cases in that area.

This map demonstrates an indicator that focuses on mental or psychological abuse cases of elderly people that have been reported in all counties in California in 2018. This data was collected by the Adult Protective Services organization in 2018.

In this topographical depiction, we clearly see the regions of California in which there have been the most and least reported cases of mental harm to elderly people in 2018. The map also illustrates areas in the state in which this type of abuse is most likely to occur compared to other regions with 99% confidence. These areas are also known as “hot-spots.” Regions covered with the color red, have a higher chance of having mental abuse cases with a 99% confidence, while regions with the darker shade of the color blue have the lowest chance of having mental abuse cases with 99% confidence. The areas with the least likely occurrence are known as “cold spots.” Based on the map, cases of mental abuse are likely to occur in most of Southern California and less likely to occur in some counties in the Northern California/Sacramento area.

Overall, these were the types of abuse towards the elderly population in CA. This story map demonstrated maps from 10 different indicators that the layer from The Adult Protective Services organizations (APS) found during the year of 2018. In the 10 indicators we find data that was reported of abuse cases in: Physical, Financial, Sexual, Neglect, Abandonment, Isolation, Abduction, Psychological/Mental and others. During the process of this project, all of the team members of group #4 had the opportunity to analyze and compare "hotspots", number of cases reported, regions more affected and other important information. We concluded that the counties with higher cases in most of type of abuse are located in the Southern side of the State of California.

Elderly abuse is a problem in California and should be focused onto prevent future abuse and mistreatment of elders. In order to do so, policies need to be added and implemented to keep our elders safety. Policies such as hiring ethical caretakers for elders and taking the precise precautionary measures when hiring them by running background checks and all that is needed. Another way to ensure that our elders are being being treated fairly is to have a third-party organization inspect each senior home without notice monthly to observe if caretakers are taking the right measures to take care of our elders. Also, directing funds to programs that help identify and protect elders from any mistreatment and giving funds to start more programs in areas such as the Southern California counties since most abuse cases are located within these counties. These are only some of the few policies that California should take in consideration to reduce the number of cases of elderly abuse.