The predominant perception of intimate partner violence (IPV) as constituting physical violence can still dominate, particularly in research and media reports, despite research documenting multiple forms of IPV including sexual violence occurring between intimate partners and various forms of psychological and emotional abuse. One frequently hidden or "invisible" form of abuse perpetrated within intimate partner relationships is economic abuse, also referred to as financial abuse in much of the literature. While the links between gendered economic insecurity and economic abuse are emerging, there remains a lack of consistency about definitions within the United States and globally, as there is no agreed upon index with which to measure economic abuse. As such, the purpose of this article is to review and analyze the global literature focused on either economic or financial abuse to determine how it is defined and what measures are used to capture its prevalence and impact. The 46 peer-reviewed articles that met all inclusion criteria for analysis came from a range of countries across six continents. Our review found that there is growing clarity and consistency of terminologies being used in these articles and found some consistency in the use of validated measures. Since this research is in its "infancy," we need to have stronger collaborative efforts to use similar measures and terminology. Part of that collaborative effort is to consider how language and cultural differences may play a part in our understanding of economic abuse.

This study examines the prevalence of dementia in elderly Chinese aged 70 years and older in Hong Kong using a two-phase design. In phase 1, 1,034 elderly were interviewed with the Cantonese version of the Mini-Mental State Examination. Those who scored below the cutoff points and a subsample of those with scores in the normal range were interviewed in phase 2 to identify those with dementia. The overall weighted prevalence of dementia in our subjects was 6.1 +/- 0.7%, which is at the lower end of the range of rates reported in whites. Alzheimer's disease (AD) accounted for 64.6% and vascular dementia, 29.3%. Our results, together with previous studies in Chinese populations, suggest that the rates of AD in Chinese are low compared with those in whites. Substantial differences are possible in the epidemiology of dementia across cultures related to interactions of genetic and environmental factors.

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IntroductionImproving social inclusion opportunities for population health has been identified as a priority area for international policy. There is a need to comprehensively examine and evaluate the quality of psychometric properties of measures of social inclusion that are used to guide social policy and outcomes.ObjectiveTo conduct a systematic review of the literature on all current measures of social inclusion for any population group, to evaluate the quality of the psychometric properties of identified measures, and to evaluate if they capture the construct of social inclusion.MethodsA systematic search was performed using five electronic databases: CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, ERIC and Pubmed and grey literature were sourced to identify measures of social inclusion. The psychometric properties of the social inclusion measures were evaluated against the COSMIN taxonomy of measurement properties using pre-set psychometric criteria.ResultsOf the 109 measures identified, twenty-five measures, involving twenty-five studies and one manual met the inclusion criteria. The overall quality of the reviewed measures was variable, with the Social and Community Opportunities Profile-Short, Social Connectedness Scale and the Social Inclusion Scale demonstrating the strongest evidence for sound psychometric quality. The most common domain included in the measures was connectedness (21), followed by participation (19); the domain of citizenship was covered by the least number of measures (10). No single instrument measured all aspects within the three domains of social inclusion. Of the measures with sound psychometric evidence, the Social and Community Opportunities Profile-Short captured the construct of social inclusion best.ConclusionsThe overall quality of the psychometric properties demonstrate that the current suite of available instruments for the measurement of social inclusion are promising but need further refinement. There is a need for a universal working definition of social inclusion as an overarching construct for ongoing research in the area of the psychometric properties of social inclusion instruments.

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