A new initiative that I am helping coordinate through the Research to Practice Interest Group of the National Adult Protective Services Association.  We presented the project at the NAPSA’s Annual Meeting in Bellevue, WA on September 9, 2025.  

With proposed cuts in federal funding, local policymakers need to understand the scope of elder mistreatment (EM) in their communities and how programs like adult protective services (APS) try to respond.  BEACON (Benchmarking Elder Abuse Compared to Other Needs) is a new resource to help educate policymakers about the scope of EM.  It provides credible data at the local level and puts results in context by comparing EM prevalence to other older adult concerns.  We estimated past-year prevalence of EM as 12.0%, based on the lower confidence limit recalculated from a subset of 23 prevalence studies from a meta-analysis (Yon et al., 2017), multiplied by 2024 census estimates of 65+ resident populations. Data from the National Cancer Institute generated average annual counts of new cancer diagnoses for each county among adults 65+ years old.  For Alzheimer’s Disease, we applied model-based county prevalence estimates from a recent study (Dhana et al., 2023) to updated 2024 census estimates of 65+ resident populations.

BEACON’s free online dashboard presents data on the scope of EM, cancer, and Alzheimer’s Disease for 2,711 of 3,143 US Counties, and for 49 US States.  State by state, we are also appending APS administrative data as well as county-level average annual counts of motor vehicle crashes involving older drivers. Materials guide users on how to use the data (e.g., arguing that funding discussions about services for older adults should also consider EM as a related, common problem) and how to respond to anticipated questions (e.g., how effective is APS?).

Steinman, K. J., & Pellerin, J. (2025). Racial/Ethnic Group Differences in the Incidence of Self-Neglect: Variation Across Metropolitan and Rural Regions. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2025.2513498

ABSTRACT

This study describes how racial/ethnic group differences in self-neglect incidence varied across metropolitan and rural regions of Texas. The data included 134,538 cases of self-neglect validated by adult protective services among people 65+ years old from 2020 to 2023. We aggregated county population figures from US Census Bureau estimates and used negative binomial regression models to estimate the association of race/ethnicity, gender, and region type with self-neglect case counts. Self-neglect incidence among Black older adults was about twice that of White older adults, a difference that persisted across metropolitan regions. Black-White differences were more pronounced in Northwest rural regions but were absent in the El Paso region. Hispanic-White differences varied across both metropolitan and rural regions. In the Arlington region, for example, self-neglect incidence among Hispanic older adults was less than that of White older adults, whereas in San Antonio it was greater. Addressing self-neglect among Black and Hispanic older adults should anticipate that different communities may require distinct approaches. Future studies with more geographic units should build on this descriptive study to explain variation in racial/ethnic group differences in self-neglect incidence.

https://www.facebook.com/OSUehe/videos/senior-research-scientist-kenneth-steinman-joined-the-latest-episode-of-the-insp/1028921328447665/

The Adult Protective Services Administrative Data Initiative (AADI) is a national network of researchers, practitioners, and other stakeholders interested in using administrative data to improve APS programs.  AADI is a project of the National Adult Protective Services Association’s Research to Practice Interest Group [napsa-now.org] (NAPSA R2P), for which Kenny Steinman serves as Lead Organizer.

On February 3, 2023, AADI’s first Online Forum convened 147 participants to discuss:

1. How APS administrative data are currently being used; and
2. High-priority research questions that may be partly answered through analysis of APS administrative data.

The Online Forum was a great success!  Since then, we have been revising our conclusions based on participants’ feedback and are pleased to present the results in a new report: Using Administrative Data to Improve APS Programs. [napsa-now.org]

AADI’s first year has been very productive.  Our next steps are to find an institutional home and create longer-term goals that complement – and not duplicate – related important efforts like the National Adult Maltreatment Reporting System (NAMRS) and the APS Technical Assistance Resources Center (APS TARC).

We will be organizing a strategic plan during Fall 2023 that will encourage broad participation.  Stay tuned for more details later this summer.  For more information about AADI, email info@napsa-now.org .

Steinman, K.J., Burnett, J., & Hoffman, R. (2023).  Racial/Ethnic Group Differences in Older Adults’ Involvement with Adult Protective Services, Journal of Gerontological Social Work, https://doi.org/10.1080/01634372.2023.2191118

This paper represents the first study to focus on quantifying racial/ethnic group differences in older adults’ involvement with adult protective services (APS). Across 3 independent county programs, the rate of APS reports was about twice as high for Black older adults compared to White older adults. These differences were greater for clients who were older and male but remained similar across allegation type. The percent of reports validated was slightly but consistently lower for Black clients than for White clients, and a lower percentage of Black clients’ cases were closed due to investigation or service refusal. Findings for Hispanic clients differed by county, so it was impossible to generalize about their APS experience. Researchers should distinguish racial/ethnic group differences that persist across multiple programs from those that are program-specific. Further studies with larger data sets are needed to guide APS practice and ensure equity for all clients served.

Steinman, K.J. & Anetzberger, G.J. (2022) Measuring the diverse characteristics of county adult protective services programs, Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect,  DOI: 10.1080/08946566.2022.2092243

Adult protective services (APS) programs vary markedly, yet few studies have quantified this diversity. In 2020, a survey of Ohio’s 85 county-administered APS programs incorporated subsequent feedback from staff and described the programs in a systematic manner. This process resulted in a 100% response rate and illustrated an efficient approach to measuring organizational characteristics (e.g., whether any staff are mostly dedicated to APS), resources (e.g., access to multidisciplinary teams), and practices (e.g., how often staff create a plan to meet client goals). The prevalence of many factors differed by the number of older adults the program served. For instance, 75% of programs in large counties had regular opportunities to share complex cases with a multidisciplinary team, compared to 28% of programs in small counties. Understanding the diverse characteristics of APS programs – and how to measure them – can help agencies guide quality improvement efforts and the dissemination of innovations.

using aps data_open access version  is a “green open access” version of an article that has since been published as:

Steinman, K. J., Liu, P. J., Anetzberger, G., Pettey Rockwood, A., Teferra, A., & Ejaz, F. K. (2022). Using administrative data from adult protective services: opportunities and considerations. Journal of Elder Abuse & Neglect, 1–15. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/08946566.2021.2020700

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 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

The Ohio Medicaid Assessment Survey (OMAS) involves a series of very large, representative surveys that provides valuable information about the health care access, utilization, and health status of Ohioans at the state, regional and county levels, with a concentration on Ohio’s Medicaid population. Since 2004, I have worked on several research projects with OMAS and I currently serve on the project’s Executive Committee.

This page provides links to some of the OMAS policy briefs, chart books, and other publications that I authored or co-authored.  For more information, please refer to the project web page.

•   Steinman, K.J., Price-Spratlen, T. & Browning, C.  (2020).  Perceived racial discrimination and the health of Black youth in Ohio.  Ohio Journal of Public Health, 3(3): 6-10. [link]
•   Racial/Ethnic Health Disparities in Ohio: Hypertension (2019) [link]
•   Health Care for the Uninsured: Findings for Ohio’s Medicaid-Eligible Adults and Other Key Subpopulations (2016) [link]
•   Emerging Challenges of Serving Ohio’s Children with Special Health Care Needs (2013) [link]
•   How Does Health Insurance Buffer the Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence in Ohio? (2011) [link]
•   Intimate Partner Violence Among Medicaid and Uninsured Populations in Ohio: Associations with Health Outcomes and Care Utilization (2009) [link]

In 2020, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) engaged a team from the Ohio State University (OSU) to conduct an extensive study of the state’s adult protective service (APS) system.  Kenneth Steinman, Senior Research Scientist in OSU’s College of Education and Human Ecology, led the team, which included analysts from the Ohio Colleges of Medicine Government Resource Center, Measurement Resources Company and two nationally-acclaimed consultants: Georgia Anetzberger and Carol Dayton.  “We’re enthusiastic about this project,” said Heidi Turner-Stone, APS Section Chief at ODJFS.  “It helped us understand the different types of programs and practices that are helping us best serve Ohio’s vulnerable adults.”

This page includes three documents associated with the project.

•   Assessment Report – the final report with detailed findings and conclusions (aps research project final report)
•   Methodological Appendix to the Assessment Report – a detailed description of the methods used to generate the results (aps final report appendix 20210603)
•   APS Program Highlights – a series of 2-page summaries, highlighting six county programs that illustrate the diversity of noteworthy approaches (JFS08008.pdf)

Suggested citations appear within each document.  This project was supported by ODJFS grant #C-2021-06-0509.

I’ve never blogged and I don’t plan to start now.  Still, I hope this is a useful forum to distribute some of my work open access, so it is freely available to the public.  Each entry will display a separate project or paper.  As more work for a particular project becomes available, I may update the corresponding entry from time to time.

I do not necessarily own the copyright for any of the posted materials; often someone else does but has distributed the materials publicly and given me permission to do so too. 

Please do not hesitate to contact me directly at steinman.13@osu.edu with any questions.

Thank you for your interest!

-Kenny Steinman