Predicting Vulnerable Adult Maltreatment Cases in Counties
Adult protection services assist maltreated older or disabled adult state residents. These
social service programs (1) respond to reported abuse, neglect, self-neglect or financial
exploitation.
A report of an incident or occurrence of adult maltreatment may come from mandated or non-
mandated sources. This report receives an initial eligibility examination and is kept in a federal
repository. The county, as a lead investigating agency, takes a case from the repository, clarifies
the report, applies screening criteria, and accepts the case for investigation and services. The
investigative phase evaluates the level of risk by assessing the environment and interviewing
the vulnerable adult, the perpetrator, and associated parties. Once substantiated, the case is
assigned to collaborated agencies to mitigate the abusive condition.
The administrator seeks to manage limited county resources well so that all instances and
occurrences of maltreatment are reported, investigated, and mitigated. Resource planning
depends upon cycle time measurements, process capability, and forecast of service needs. As
continuous improvement methods (3) yield time and capability parameters, statistical models
refine the often intuitive estimation of a county's service needs.
Maltreatment Prediction Model. Maltreatment of vulnerable adults is a clinical concept that
varies from one vulnerable adult to another. One way to measure this conceptual variable is to
count cases that pass through a certain point in the process. Conveniently, reports or cases
accepted after screening for investigation and services is a measure included in the Minnesota
Department of Human Services adult protection services dashboard (1). The analysis then
enters the phase where economic and demographic factors that can explain the different
number of cases in each Minnesota County are statistically selected. Data for these explanatory
variables are available at the Association of Minnesota Counties website (2). The selected
statistical model was the best fitting by using multiple regression analysis.
Forecasts of total population, poverty level, elderly population, and diversity were obtained for
three Minnesota counties: Ramsey, Itasca, and Mahnomen to demonstrate calculations used in
this model. These are in the yellowed fields below. The calculated number of expected adult
maltreatment cases is in light blue.
Multiple Regression Analysis. This model-building technique was described in a previous
article (4). Cases labeled “Accepted for Investigation and Services” for 2017 and 2018 were
collected and averaged for each of the 87 Minnesota counties. This is the closest data element
to the conceptual vulnerable adult maltreatment that is public information. The table below
lists this dependent variable, the independent variables, and their respective sources.
High correlations among data elements surfaced during the exploratory phase of model-
building. The demographic variables with correlation coefficients of 90% and above concerning
the dependent variable were those: residents aged 15-17 years, white ethnicity, total
population, aged 65+, and Hispanic/Latino ethnicity. American Indian/Native Alaskan residents
gave the lowest correlation coefficient of the variables considered at 61%.
References:
(1) Minnesota Department of Human Services. https://mn.gov/dhs/assets/2017-2020-VAP-
(2) Association of Minnesota Counties. County Data (mncounties.org)
(3) Continuous Improvement and the Administrator. Www.mgmtlaboratory.com, Mar
2019.
(4) Evaluating Human Services Performance across Counties: Multiple Regression Analysis
(MRA) Demonstration. Www.mgmtlaboratory.com, July 2018.
By Staff. Www.mgmtlaboratory.com 2022
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