When nursing home residents are silenced, the consequences can be dire. Too often, fear of staff retaliation – the fear itself – prevents residents from voicing concerns and from receiving the care and services to which they are entitled. Ultimately, this inaction leads to unnecessary emotional, psychological, and physical harm to vulnerable residents.

In honor of World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (WEEAD), LTCCC is releasing a new report “They Make You Pay”: How Fear of Retaliation Silences Residents in America’s Nursing Homes. This groundbreaking research examines fear of staff retaliation and the consequences of this fear by capturing residents’ experiences in their own words, using 100 government investigation reports on nursing homes from across the country.

On this page, you can access: A full PDF of the report; user-friendly summaries of surveys highlighting the residents’ lived experiences; select excerpts from survey summaries; video and slides from LTCCC’s webinar on fear of retaliation, featuring Eilon Caspi, PhD (the principal author of the report); and a digital archive of the survey and complaint investigations.

We hope that this project will heighten awareness of fear of retaliation and result in real changes in policy, practice, and enforcement actions.

Download “They Make You Pay”: How fear of staff retaliation silences residents in America’s nursing homes.

Project Goals

  • Identifying different types of residents’ fear of staff retaliation.

  • Raising awareness of the emotional consequences of retaliation.

  • Shedding light on how fear of retaliation inhibits reporting of (and accountability for) substandard care, abuse, and neglect.

Media inquiries: info@ltccc.org, 212-385-0355.