TY - SER AU - Bows, Hannah TI - Sexual violence against older people: a review of the empirical literature PY - 2018/// PB - Sage, KW - ELDER ABUSE KW - DOMESTIC VIOLENCE KW - INTIMATE PARTNER VIOLENCE KW - LITERATURE REVIEWS KW - OLDER PEOPLE KW - SEXUAL VIOLENCE KW - INTERNATIONAL KW - UNITED KINGDOM N1 - Trauma, Violence & Abuse, 2018, 19(5): 567-583 N2 - Aging and sexual violence are both established areas of research, but little attention has been paid to research into sexual violence against older people. This article presents a critical review of the literature reporting empirical research in three overlapping fields of inquiry: elder abuse, domestic violence, and sexual violence, identifying points of theoretical and methodological similarity and difference across academic disciplines. Using a range of search terms combining age, sexual violence, and elder abuse, the following databases were searched: EBSCOHOST, Ingenta-Ingenta connect, and JSTOR. In total, the databases searches returned 31 relevant articles and an additional 9 relevant articles were found through manual searches of bibliographies and Google searches, which were grouped into three categories: elder abuse, domestic violence in later life, and sexual violence against older people. Four themes common across these fields emerged: prevalence, characteristics of victims and risk factors, impacts and coping strategies, and perpetrator and assault characteristics. The findings in each area are discussed in detail, exposing gaps in knowledge and understandings of sexual violence against older women. The article ends by defining a future research agenda for this underexplored phenomenon that is of increasing importance in a context of global aging. (Author's abstract). Record #8226 UR - https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838016683455 ER -