Despite international growth in policies to increase the identification and response to elder abuse and neglect, there remain considerable barriers to treating the problem. Some of these barriers may be attributed to how older adults from different racial/ethnic backgrounds define, experience and seek to remedy elder mistreatment. Using focus group discussions based on case vignettes, this paper examines how older adults from different racial and ethnic backgrounds in the United States of America perceive elder mistreatment. Five focus groups were conducted with African Americans, English-speaking Latinos, Spanish-speaking Latinos, non-Latino Whites and African American care-givers for older adults. While similar definitions and meanings of elder abuse were expressed across the different racial/ethnic groups, Latino participants introduced additional themes of machismo, respect, love and early intervention to stop abuse, suggesting that perceptions/beliefs about elder mistreatment are determined by culture and degree of acculturation in addition to race/ethnicity. Most differences in attitudes occurred within groups, demonstrating that perceptions vary by individual as well as by culture. In identifying scenarios that constitute elder mistreatment, some participants felt that certain cases of abuse are actually the persistence of intimate partner violence into old age. Participants also indicated that victims may prefer to tolerate mistreatment in exchange for other perceived benefits (e.g. companionship, security); and out of fear that they could be placed in an institution if mistreatment is reported. Findings suggest the need for person-centred intervention and prevention models that integrate the cultural background, care needs and individual preferences of older adults.

Previous research has shown that exchanges of support within social networks reduce the loneliness of older adults. However, there is no consistent evidence on how types of support (instrumental and emotional) and the direction of that support (giving and receiving) are related to loneliness, and whether the effects are culture-specific. The aim of this study was to investigate support exchanges and their effects on loneliness in Spain and the Netherlands. We suggest that cultural differences, such as more interdependent cultural values in Southern Europe and more independence-related values in Northern Europe, influence social realities such as the social support exchanged. In Spain relationships with family members are determined by mutual obligations; older people expect to receive instrumental support from them. However, in Northern Europe independence is highly valued and intimacy and closeness are shown primarily by confiding about personal matters. This paper examined data from two comparable surveys, one in Spain (N=646) and one in the Netherlands (N=656). Older adults in Spain provide for, and receive, high amounts of instrumental support and this proved to be a protective factor against loneliness. An alternative pattern was found in the Netherlands where respondents provided more and received more emotional support than Spanish older adults; emotional support is a protective factor in the Netherlands (but only for support received).

Awareness of risk factors for loneliness is a prerequisite for preventive action. Many risk factors for loneliness have been identified. This paper focuses on two: poor health and widowhood. Preventive action by developing a satisfying social network requires time and effort and thus seems appropriate for people unexposed to risk factors, i.e. third agers and non-lonely persons. The third age is the period in old age after retirement, before people's social relationships deteriorate. This paper addresses three questions: Are older adults aware of poor health and widowhood as risk factors for loneliness? Are there differences in awareness between third and fourth agers? Are there differences in awareness between lonely and non-lonely older adults? After being introduced to four vignette persons, 920 respondents from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam were asked whether they expected these persons to be lonely. Older adults, especially third agers, expected peers exposed to the risk factors to be lonely more often than peers who were unexposed. The results indicate that awareness of loneliness-provoking factors is high among third agers, which is a first step towards taking actions to avoid loneliness. Compared to lonely older adults, non-lonely ones expected peers to be lonely less often, suggesting the latter's lower awareness of the risk factors. The results provide evidence for policy makers and practitioners that combating loneliness might require early action.

In this study, we identify the dominant storylines that were embedded in the narratives of younger people with dementia and their nominated family members. By implementing a longitudinal, narrative design underpinned by biographical methods we generated detailed family biographies with five families during repeated and planned research contacts (N=126) over a 12–15-month period between 2009 and 2010. The application of narrative analysis within and between each family biography resulted in the emergence of five family storyline types that were identified as: agreeing; colluding; conflicting; fabricating; and protecting. Whilst families were likely to use each of these storylines at different points and at different times in their exposure to young onset dementia, it was found that families that adopted a predominantly ‘agreeing’ storyline were more likely to find ways of positively overcoming challenges in their everyday lives. In contrast, families who adopted predominantly ‘conflicting’ and ‘colluding’ storylines were more likely to require help to understand family positions and promote change. The findings suggest that the identification of the most dominant and frequently occurring storylines used by families may help to further understand family experience in young onset dementia and assist in planning supportive services.

The extent to which a system of services is in tune with the needs of the population can be expressed in terms of target efficiency, which includes horizontal target efficiency – the extent to which those deemed to need a service receive it – and vertical target efficiency – the corresponding extent to which those who receive a service actually need it. Vertical efficiency can be measured by looking only at those receiving services. To measure horizontal target efficiency in a population, one must have access to population surveys. Data were taken from the baseline survey of the Swedish National Study on Ageing and Care (SNAC study). The results show that more than 80 per cent of those dependent in personal activities of daily living in the studied geographic areas were users of public long-term care (LTC). Dependency in instrumental activities of daily living was identified as the most important predictor of using LTC. Vertical target efficiency was 83–95 per cent depending on age, gender and type of household, if need was defined as dependency in instrumental activities of daily living. It was considerably lower, 35–61 per cent when defined as dependency in personal daily activities. Overall, long-term target efficiency in Sweden must be regarded as high. Few persons who need public LTC services fail to receive them.

Family relationships are important for wellbeing across the lifecourse and are known to be important for people living with dementia, bringing benefits to self-esteem and identity, as well as providing support for people living at home. Recent research has explored the impact of dementia upon relationships. Much of this research is qualitative in nature and rarely included in systematic reviews, however, it has the potential to provide significant contributions to understanding the interplay between family relationships and dementia and to inform interventions. A systematic synthesis of qualitative research concerning the impact of dementia upon family relationships was undertaken, using thematic synthesis. Eleven articles were reviewed, which address the perspectives of people living with dementia and their spouse and/or adult children. The aims of this review are to illuminate what is currently known about the reciprocal influences between family relationships and dementia from the perspectives of the family (including the person with dementia); and to consider the implications of these findings for research and practice. Four super-ordinate themes were identified: ‘a shared history’, ‘negotiating the impact of dementia upon the relationship’, ‘openness and awareness’ and ‘shifting sands’. This synthesis contributes to an emerging field but also highlights gaps in current understanding of the impact of dementia upon relationships and in providing appropriate interventions. Implications for research and practice are considered.

This article contributes to emerging debates around age-friendly environments, providing empirical evidence concerning the relative age-friendliness of purpose-built retirement communities. Adopting a new definition – ‘underpinned by a commitment to respect and social inclusion, an age-friendly community is engaged in a strategic and ongoing process to facilitate active ageing by optimising the community's physical and social environments and its supporting infrastructure’ – the article analyses the age-friendliness of one retirement community in England. The Longitudinal Study of Ageing in a Retirement Community (LARC) encompassed two waves of a survey with residents, interviews and focus groups with stakeholders involved in staffing, managing and designing the community, and other qualitative data collected from residents. Reviewing the different data sources, the article argues that purpose-built retirement communities have the potential to be age-friendly settings but might better involve residents in a regular cycle of planning, implementation, evaluation and continual improvement if they are to facilitate active ageing. In addition, more clarity is needed on how such developments can better fit with the age-friendly agenda, particularly in terms of their capacity to support ageing in place, the accessibility of the wider neighbourhood, opportunities for intergenerational interactions, and the training of staff to work with older people.

This paper examines the relationship between age and training in the 15 European Union countries (EU-15) that were member states prior to the 2004 enlargement. The analysis is carried out using European Union Labour Force Survey data. We report cross-country comparisons of the training undertaken by older people (aged 50–64) and younger people (aged 20–49). We extend previous research by adding an analysis of the training undertaken by non-workers as well as that of workers. We also consider whether training is work-related, whether it is undertaken during normal work-hours and the time spent in training. Our results show that across the EU-15 not only are older people less likely to participate in training in general but, more importantly, they are less likely to participate in work-related training. Our evidence suggests that there is considerable scope for raising the training rates of older people and particularly older people who are out of work.

This paper investigates the prevalence of incapacity in performing daily activities and the associations between household composition and availability of family members and receipt of care among older adults with functioning problems in Spain, England and the United States of America (USA). We examine how living arrangements, marital status, child availability, limitations in functioning ability, age and gender affect the probability of receiving formal care and informal care from household members and from others in three countries with different family structures, living arrangements and policies supporting care of the incapacitated. Data sources include the 2006 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe for Spain, the third wave of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (2006), and the eighth wave of the USA Health and Retirement Study (2006). Logistic and multinomial logistic regressions are used to estimate the probability of receiving care and the sources of care among persons age 50 and older. The percentage of people with functional limitations receiving care is higher in Spain. More care comes from outside the household in the USA and England than in Spain. The use of formal care among the incapacitated is lowest in the USA and highest in Spain.

This paper examines life-long singlehood and its ramifications in old age among women and men in Ireland. During the life-time of the 26 research participants, Ireland shifted from the Western European marriage pattern, characterised by high rates of singlehood, late marriage and high fertility, to declining prevalence of singlehood, higher marriage rates and lower fertility. In-depth interviews were analysed with the help of narrative analysis and grounded theory methods. We identified two main pathways into singlehood that had a long-term impact on the participants' lives. The women and men who had chosen singlehood associated this status with independence, self-fulfilment and autonomy throughout their lifecourse, including in old age. In contrast, older adults who had been constrained in their choice of marital status due to poverty, care work, family roles and cultural norms, expressed regret and dissatisfaction with their single status. In the latter group, the ramifications of the inability to actualise the roles of a spouse, parent and grandparent were particularly apposite in later life when many felt the absence of close ties and expressed loneliness. For some of the older adults who had been constrained in their choice of marital status in earlier life, the possibility of entering into a romantic relationship seemed more feasible in later life. How older adults interpret their pathway into the single status in earlier life impacts on relationship formation and life satisfaction in older age.

The introduction of cash-for-care schemes such as individual or personal budgets in England has been seen as central to the personalisation agenda for reforming the delivery of adult social care. However, despite there being 5.2 million carers in England and Wales, the initiative concentrates predominantly on the needs of the service user. The implementation of individual budgets (IBs) was piloted within 13 local authorities during 2005–2007 and the Department of Health commissioned an independent evaluation of this pilot (IBSEN). The focus was only on the service user in the evaluation and therefore a separate but linked study was set up to evaluate the impact and outcomes of IBs on carers. Carers of service users who had consented to take part in the main IBSEN study were identified and invited to participate in a follow-up study aimed at exploring how IBs impacted on carers and the caring role. The study found that the receipt of the budget was significantly associated with positive impacts on carers' reported quality of life and, when other factors were taken into account, with social care outcomes. These outcome gains were achieved despite no higher costs being incurred to the public purse, thus suggesting that IBs for service users are cost-effective for carers.

The concept of age-friendly communities has garnered international attention among researchers, policy makers and community organisations since the World Health Organization launched its Global Age-friendly Cities Project in 2006. Despite the growth of the age-friendly communities movement, few studies have examined age-friendly characteristics within different community contexts. The goal of the present study was to use a participatory methodology to explore older adults’ perceptions of age-friendliness. The study employed the photovoice technique with 30 community-based older adults in one urban community and three rural communities in the province of Manitoba, Canada. Participants were provided with cameras and took photographs to illustrate the relative age-friendliness of their communities and to generate discussion in interviews and focus groups. Themes from photographs, interviews and focus groups were organised into three broad categories: age-friendly features, contextual factors and cross-cutting themes. The age-friendly features we identified in this study generally correspond to the World Health Organization domains of age-friendliness. In addition, we identified three contextual factors that impact the experiences of older adults within their community environment: community history and identity, ageing in urban, rural and remote communities, and environmental conditions. Finally, independence, affordability and accessibility were identified as cross-cutting themes that intersect with various community features and contextual factors.

Ageing in place has been promoted by policy makers as the optimal residential solution for later life, premised on older people's reluctance to contemplate relocation, their declining residential mobility and high levels of residential satisfaction. This paper takes a critical perspective to the notion of ageing in place by examining older people's dislikes about, rather than levels of satisfaction with their home and neighbourhood environments, and establishing whether such dislikes influence a desire to move. Analysis of the 2004 Living in Wales Survey shows that despite high levels of residential satisfaction, a significant proportion of older people do wish to move. Logistic regression results indicate this desire is strongly associated with dislikes about their immediate home environment, more than neighbourhood factors. Contemplating a move in later life may be shaped more by a desire to ‘attach’ to people, than to remain in situ to preserve an attachment to place.

This qualitative study investigated the ageing and aged care experiences in Australia of two cohorts of older survivors of genocide: Jewish Holocaust survivors and older Cambodian genocide survivors. It was carried out in response to an identified need to better train aged care workers who are in contact with these groups. In-depth interviews were conducted with 21 community-dwelling survivors aged 65 and over. Credibility was ensured by methodological triangulation and peer debriefing. The study highlighted the importance of understanding older survivors’ ageing and aged care experiences in the context of their entire lifecourse and in terms of both vulnerability and resilience. It showed that trauma history can heighten older survivors’ sensitivity to many aspects of the social and physical environments in residential, community and home-based aged care settings. The study also uncovered the potential for aged care services to help older survivors cope with the psycho-social and emotional effects of resurfacing post-traumatic stress symptoms. The implications of the study findings for care practice include the importance of recognising older survivors of genocide as a distinct group of clients and the need to distinguish staff training for caring for this client group from general cultural awareness training.

The promotion of choice and control for older people is a policy priority for social care services in the United Kingdom and is at the heart of recent drives to personalise services. Increasingly, we are seeing a move away from institutionalised care (e.g. in care homes) towards enablement, with more services being delivered in community-based settings. Extra care housing has been promoted as a purpose-built, community-based alternative to residential care for older people. However, whilst accounts of users' experiences in particular service types are plentiful, the use of different instrumentation and measures makes comparison between settings difficult. We combined data from four studies where participants were older people either living in care homes or extra care housing or receiving care at home. All of these studies asked participants to rate their control over daily life, using the Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT). This paper presents the results of an ordinal logistic regression analysis indicating that, after controlling for differences in age, ability to perform activities of daily living and self-rated health, setting had a significant effect on older people's sense of control. Residents in care homes and extra care housing report similar levels of control over daily life but consistently report feeling more in control than older people receiving care at home. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.