Randomized Controlled Study of the EMPOWER Program to Prevent Abuse and Financial Exploitation of Older Adults

The Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center (Urban) in partnership with NORC at the University of Chicago (NORC) propose to conduct a full-scale, multisite, randomized controlled study of the EMPOWER program to prevent the abuse and financial exploitation of older adults—a program developed and pilot tested under National Institute of Justice (NIJ) award 2016-MU-CX-K006—in communities that have been historically underserved, marginalized, adversely affected by inequality, and/or disproportionately impacted by crime, violence, and victimization. The proposed, national implementation and outcome evaluation of EMPOWER would address Topic Area 1 by rigorously evaluating a program to prevent mistreatment of older adults, Topic Area 2 by evaluating older adults' resilience to financial exploitation, and Topic Area 3 by incorporating a research question on those who perpetrate mistreatment. EMPOWER is a resilience-building, theory-informed, and evidence-driven prevention program developed through a multidisciplinary partnership between the Area Agency on Aging, Region One (AAA) and Urban. It represents the US Department of Justice (DOJ)’s first major investment in primary prevention of mistreatment for community-dwelling (noninstitutionalized) older adults. We have letters of support from aging services providers in 9 diverse communities across the United States and plan to select sites in collaboration with NIJ. Our objectives are to: (1) conduct a full-scale RCT outcome evaluation of EMPOWER on a multisite sample of at least 1,000 older adults, assessing EMPOWER’s effects over one year of their lives through pretest, posttest, and follow-up surveys; (2) examine the implementation feasibility, fidelity, and sustainability of EMPOWER by aging services providers who were not involved in its development; (3) understand EMPOWER’s cultural relevance for low-income, older adults living alone in racially diverse and historically marginalized communities through quasi-experimental subgroup analyses; (4) measure the program’s cost effectiveness; (5) qualitatively examine 5-year follow-up effects of EMPOWER through interviews with participants from the original EMPOWER pilot study; (6) analyze characteristics of individuals who perpetrate older adult abuse and financial exploitation; and (7) broadly disseminate study findings—including a revised EMPOWER facilitator manual and client journal—through peer learning and data walk opportunities, a research report and brief, scholarly articles, and conference/webinar presentations. CA/NCF