Are Racial Groups Associated with Recurrence of Adult Protective Services?

Abstract

Little is known about the recurrence differences among diverse race/ethnic groups in the Adult Protective Services (APS). This mixed methods triangulation design study used data from both administrative databases and interview/focus groups with APS social workers to explore whether race/ethnic groups are associated with different recurrence in APS. The recurrence rate of APS was 21.4% in the sample of 4,426 clients in a county of California. Results from the multiple logistic regression showed that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were less likely to have one or more APS reports and investigations within the 12-month follow-up after the case closure of the initial APS investigation when compared with Hispanic Americans. No statistically significant results were found among other racial/ethnic groups. Some co-variates were also found to be associated with the recurrence including marital status, risk level, financial abuse, and self-neglect. Qualitative results provided some support to the main findings from the quantitative analysis results. Both quantitative and qualitative analytical approaches intimated that racial/ethnic differences might not be a prominent factor leading to different APS recurrence. The limitations of this article indicate that there is a need for additional studies to further examine the influence of race/ethnicity on APS recurrence.

Keywords:

• APS outcomes
• recurrence
• Asian American
• Hispanic American
• structured decision-making tool

Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful to the amazing team at the Santa Clara County Social Services Agency for their dedication to the promotion safety of older and dependent adults in our region. Their great support of the research effort has been invaluable. We also want to acknowledge the support of Dr. Catherine Vu, Dr. Kristine Frerer, Idauli Tamarin for the study design, Susan Chang, Mary Ann Warren, Dr. Louay Constant for comments, and Vanessa Padilla for the assistance with data collection and analysis.

Disclosure Statement

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

Data Availablity Statement

The data are not available to other researchers for replication purposes due to data use agreement limitations.

Additional information

Funding

None declared.