Fear and Insecurity among Older People: Determinants and Potentials Consequences: Evidence from the WHO SAGE Survey

Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, University of East Anglia
Sutapa Agrawal, South Asia Network for Chronic Disease

Research from high income countries has demonstrated that fear of crime is strongly associated with a range of undesirable outcomes including low quality of life, poor mental health and limited mobility outside the home. Very little research has been conducted to verify these effects across LMICs. WHO’s SAGE survey provides an opportunity to do this for nationally representative samples of people aged 50+ in six countries: China, Ghana, India, Mexico, Russian Federation and South Africa. We examined the social patterning of fear of crime, paying particular attention to the experience of India, China and South Africa. We found large national variations in reported fear of crime both at home and on the street, as well as reported household experiences of violent crime indicating a link between perceived and actual risk of crime in this first comparative study of fear of crime among older people in LMICs.