Uncovering the Causes, Contexts, and Consequences of Elder Mistreatment (R01) | RFA AG 18 010

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA AG 18 010

Uncovering the Causes, Contexts, and Consequences of Elder Mistreatment (R01) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number RFA-AG-18-010; CFDA 93.866) focused on building stronger scientific understanding of elder mistreatment and using that knowledge to set up the next generation of targeted, mechanism-informed interventions. The opportunity is centered on elder mistreatment in its major forms, including emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, financial exploitation, abandonment, and neglect. The overarching idea is not just to document prevalence or outcomes, but to generate findings that clarify how and why mistreatment happens in real-world settings, what conditions increase or decrease risk, and what factors help older adults and families recover and prevent future harm.

The announcement emphasizes research that can lay groundwork for future interventions in three connected areas: identifying and helping individuals at risk of mistreating elders before harm occurs, promoting recovery and resilience for older adults who have experienced mistreatment (and for their families), and preventing re-perpetration among those who have already inflicted harm. In other words, the funded science is expected to push beyond description toward actionable insights, including pathways and leverage points that can later be translated into prevention strategies, clinical approaches, community supports, or service-system changes.

Applications are expected to come from multidisciplinary teams, and the FOA specifically encourages inclusion of expertise spanning elder mistreatment as well as adjacent or overlapping violence and injury fields such as child abuse and neglect, intimate partner violence, and emergency medicine. This reflects a belief that the elder mistreatment field can borrow and adapt established concepts, measurement approaches, and ethical and methodological practices from these related areas, while still addressing the unique features of aging, caregiving dynamics, dependency, cognitive impairment, and the service systems that interact with older adults.

NIH identifies two main research priority areas for this R01. The first is the development of new and innovative tools and methods for screening and detection of elder mistreatment. This priority is about improving the ability of clinicians, social service providers, adult protective services, community organizations, and other frontline settings to identify mistreatment accurately and earlier. That can include improving screening instruments, developing better detection protocols, testing novel assessment methods, or creating approaches that work in specific contexts such as emergency departments or community-based care, where time constraints, safety concerns, and underreporting often make detection difficult.

The second priority area is the identification of modifiable risk factors and modifiable protective factors for elder mistreatment. The term "modifiable" is important here: the goal is to find drivers of mistreatment and buffers against mistreatment that can realistically be changed through interventions, programs, policies, or system improvements. On the risk side, this can include characteristics of caregiving situations, household stressors, social isolation, financial pressures, substance use, mental health issues, or system-level gaps that increase vulnerability. On the protective side, it can include supports and conditions that reduce risk or help people rebound after harm, such as social connection, accessible services, caregiver supports, effective guardianship or financial safeguards, or community and clinical responses that promote safety and healing. The FOA also signals interest in factors that help both groups, those who have been mistreated and those who have mistreated others, to overcome adversity and function well going forward.

A major requirement is thoughtful attention to research ethics, especially around informed consent and study design when working with potentially vulnerable older adults and sensitive family or caregiving relationships. Applications are expected to propose evidence-based strategies to address these ethical challenges, including privacy, safety, coercion risks, and capacity-related consent concerns when cognitive impairment may be present. The FOA encourages investigators to use best practices from child abuse/neglect and intimate partner violence research where applicable, reflecting a need for rigorous protections and carefully designed protocols that minimize risk while still enabling high-quality science.

In terms of who can apply, eligibility is broad and includes many types of U.S. organizations and governmental entities, such as state, county, and local governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; tribal organizations (including those other than federally recognized tribal governments); public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofit organizations (with or without 501(c)(3) status); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); and small businesses. The FOA also calls out additional eligible applicant categories such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), as well as faith-based or community-based organizations and eligible federal agencies. U.S. territories or possessions are included as eligible applicants as well.

Foreign involvement is addressed in a way that distinguishes between applicant institutions and project components. The FOA indicates that non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations may participate, and foreign components (as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement) are allowed. The eligibility statements about non-domestic entities are presented inconsistently in the source text, but the practical takeaway from the provided language is that foreign components can be included under NIH policy, and applicants should verify the precise institutional eligibility requirements in the official FOA and NIH grants policy for the specific submission scenario.

Finally, the administrative details in the source data place this opportunity within NIH's discretionary grant funding mechanisms using the R01 activity code, with an original closing date of October 20, 2017, and an award ceiling listed as $300,000. While those dates suggest the specific announcement cycle is historical, the scientific aims described in the FOA remain a clear blueprint for what NIH was seeking: rigorous, team-based research that improves detection of elder mistreatment, identifies changeable risk and protective factors, and sets the stage for effective, ethically grounded interventions that prevent harm and support recovery.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Uncovering the Causes, Contexts, and Consequences of Elder Mistreatment (R01)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.866.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-05-12.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-10-20. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $300,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

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