Caveats for Consideration When Reviewing 2000 Survey of State APS

By Jeanette M. Daly, RN, PhD and Gerald Jogerst, MD
Department of Family Medicine, University of Iowa

Conducting research with data from different state agencies poses unique problems that may not be evident in a final report such as the 2000 Survey. One of the unique problems to consider is a lack of standardized language used by states for reporting adult/elder abuse. The National Aging Resource Center on Elder Abuse (NARCEA) published a suggested state guideline for gathering and reporting elder abuse statistics (NARCEA, 1990). Terms are identified and defined. Unfortunately this structure was not used for the 2000 survey.

An example of miscommunication of terms was identified for Iowa. Table 8, “Investigated and Substantiated Reports by State,” reflects the reports received and reports investigated by state. Iowa does not keep count of the number of incoming telephone calls or reports received. Iowa tracks only the investigations. The number 934 under reports received for Iowa is incorrect and should be blank as that number is unknown. If one reads the semi-annual Iowa Department of Human Services Dependent Adult Abuse Report, the first column is labeled “number reported” but that, too, represents not reports received, but reports investigated.

If one studies Table 8, one will note there are 29 states with the same number in both the “reports received” and the “reports investigated” columns. This suggests that other states refer to investigations as reports and adds confusion for those responding to the survey. A research team at the University of Iowa collected state elder abuse data for 1999 or calendar year 1999-2000. In that research effort, only 17 states could provide report information so it is very interesting that all states were able to provide reports received data for the 2000 Survey (Jogerst, Daly, Brinig, et al., in press).

Table 3 reflects the Scope of Investigatory Authority and details the states that investigate both domestic and institutional settings. In Iowa the Department of Human Services and the Department of Inspections and Appeals (DIA) both investigate institutional abuse. If the perpetrator of an abuse allegation is an employee of the institution then DIA completes the investigation. So again the number reflected in Table 8 does not include the 1,305 investigations completed by DIA in the year 2000. Each state is structured differently and so numbers from this report need to be extracted carefully when comparisons are being made.

Throughout the report, the authors are very aware of the composition of data and its difference from other national reports on elder abuse. One should be aware that this report is not comparable to previous reports from NCEA on the incidence of elder abuse. The following points are worthwhile to note:

• Data presented is unique for each state.
• Adults age 18-59 are included in the data if the state agency was responsible for collecting that information.
• Institutional abuse data was included in the data if the state agency was responsible for collecting that information.
• Data results are for all entities covered by APS.

The 2000 Survey reflects hard work by the investigators and much time and effort by the respondents. Let’s continue to build on previous work of others and use NARCEA’s guidelines to have a product that can be comparable from year to year to effect positive changes for those who are victims of abuse.