The Research Chair obtains research funding from the Canadian Ministry of Justice. (March 2021)

The Canadian Ministry of Justice mandates Marie Beaulieu to lead a pan-Canadian consultation focusing on current gaps in population-based data collection regarding the mistreatment of older adults.

This extensive consultation seeks to propose potential solutions that will improve data collection and overcome present methodological limits.

Entitled Addressing National Data Gaps in Senior Abuse – An exploratory feasibility study, the project will utilise diverse methods such as documentary analyses and interviews with key Canadian and international sources.

This initiative concentrates on the five concerns submitted by the Canadian Ministry of Justice’s inter-ministerial working group:

• What are the challenges associated with qualitative and quantitative data collection concerning the mistreatment of older adults;
• What elements help differentiate negligence from mistreatment of older adults, and how can they be measured;
• What are the steps to be followed or the scientific approaches to be mobilsed to ensure data collection is as unbiased as possible;
• Are there complementary avenues that could be utilised to mitigate existing limits to data collection on a national scale;
• What are the essential themes to be measured throughout data collection on the mistreatment of older adults.

Justice Canada expects the results to be made public by the end of 2021.