Using administrative data from adult protective services: opportunities and considerations

ABSTRACT

As federal agencies support the development of data systems for adult protective services (APS), researchers and practitioners are increasingly using administrative data to study types of adult maltreatment, including self-neglect, and the systems that respond to them. To date, however, APS has worked with little guidance about how best to use these data. This situation has contributed to inconsistent findings and uneven quality of research. Based on the authors’ experience in multiple states and using examples from research and practice, this paper reviews practical considerations related to organizing and analyzing APS administrative data. We address concerns related to time-limited, erroneous, and missing data, as well as defining metrics and accounting for the multilevel structure of data with repeated observations. Reviewing these methodological details can help APS practitioners strengthen quality assurance processes and improve research in this important area.

KEYWORDS:

• Adult protective services
• elder abuse/statistics and numerical data
• administrative data analysis
• quality assessment

Conflict of Iinterest

We have no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.