Read about how Allegheny County responded to an 82% increase in reports of need to Older Adult Protective Services.
Click here to read more information about older adult protective services and access real-time data.
Current dataset and related materials
What is the Community Need Index?
The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) conducts a Community Need Index (CNI) to identify specific areas that are in greater need, and face larger socioeconomic barriers, relative to others. The newest version of the CNI index ranks neighborhoods by need level by looking at:
- The percentage of families who live below the poverty line
- The percentage of unemployed or unattached males
- The percentage of those aged 25 and up without at least a Bachelor’s degree
- The percentage of single parent households
- The percentage of households without internet access
- Rate of homicide per 100,000 residents
- Rate of fatal overdoses per 100,000 residents
The researchers used a census tract level to break up the region and assess needs. Census tracts are static, relatively small subdivisions of a county.
How can I view the findings?
An interactive map allows users to view and extract data from the 2024 CNI (which uses 2022 five-year data estimates and totals). The new report focuses on all of Allegheny County, examines changes in need over time, and places emphasis on the connection between race and community need. Earlier reports are linked below.
What are the takeaways?
- In Allegheny County, we continue to find the highest levels of need in specific sections of the City of Pittsburgh (Hill District, South Hilltop, parts of the West End, Upper East End neighborhoods, Upper Northside) as well as census tracts outside the City of Pittsburgh (Mon Valley, sections of the Allegheny County River Valley, sections of Penn Hills, sections of Wilkinsburg, Stowe-Rocks).
- There are vast discrepancies between the lowest need communities, which have an average poverty rate of 2%, and the highest need communities, where the average poverty rate is 38%.
- With few exceptions, census tract-level community need is persistent over time.
- Only about one-third of Allegheny County’s Black residents live in lower-need communities. For every other racial and ethnic group in the County, the majority of residents live in lower need communities. Black communities in Allegheny County have disproportionately high levels of need, as do a number of racially mixed communities.
- Poverty status alone does not account for where various racial and ethnic groups tend to live by level of need; poor Black and Latino families are more likely than other poor families to live in higher need communities. Even Black families above the poverty line are many times more likely than their Asian, White and Latino peers above the poverty line to live in higher need communities.
How is this report used?
The geographic dimensions of community need can help inform many aspects of DHS’s strategic planning and resource allocation decisions, such as decisions on where to locate Family Centers or new after-school programs.
Where can I go for more information?
For more information, you can read previous reports below. Or you can reach out to DHS-Research@alleghenycounty.us with any questions.
Previous reports in this series
- 2018 update (all county)
- 2014 update (suburbs)
- 2012 update (suburbs)
- 2000-2009 (suburbs)
- 2000-2012 (city)
Previous datasets in this series
Current information
DHS has set five goals to guide us and our partners in serving our community well. We aim for our network for human services to improve access to care, prevent overuse of coercive services, prevent harm, increase economic security and ensure quality.
What is this report about?
DHS can reach our goals more quickly if we devote time and attention to several big, bold initiatives that will make our systems and our organization work better for everyone we serve. This document outlines our key initiatives in 2024—which are in addition to our core work of running effective systems of care for people.
Current information
County human services includes programs from over 300 community-based agencies and is delivered by social workers, peers, and outreach staff working all throughout the county. These staff run out-of-school-time programs, answer hotlines, investigate reports of potential harm to children and vulnerable adults, deliver meals to seniors and run Senior Centers, make home visits to families with newborns, and do the administrative work that makes our human services run efficiently.
What is this report about?
This report highlights the 2023 accomplishments that stood out. There are many, many other achievements that people told us about. We chose the ones that made the biggest difference.
Current Information
What is this dashboard about?
Allegheny County DHS sends text messages to county residents for a variety of reasons, including increasing awareness of services, providing timely reminders, and gathering feedback after a service experience. In addition, DHS uses this information to help evaluate and monitor programs it delivers. This dashboard displays information about these outreach and engagement efforts, including the subject and purpose of these and the rates of engagement. Data on DHS’s texting efforts are available from November 2017 to the present.
What data is available?
The dashboard allows users to examine DHS text messaging as a whole as well as drill down to individual text campaigns. It allows users to understand the purpose of each campaign, the number of messages sent and the demographics of the people being contacted by each campaign. DHS collects this information through Community Connect Labs (CCL), DHS’s texting software, and information is updated daily. Click here for a more detailed report on DHS’s texting outreach from 2018-2022.
Access the report
The Intimate Partner Violence Reform Initiative was created in May 2022 to coordinate policy and system-level work across agencies in Allegheny County to improve a complex and fragmented system for both survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) and those who use violence.
Stakeholders from local and federal criminal justice systems, victim service organizations, community groups, healthcare and human services are working to improve the ways in which people can access help, how our systems work together and share information, and how we can prevent the most serious harm. This report outlines the progress made in the first year of the initiative, as well as plans and priorities to continue these reform efforts.
Current information
What is this dashboard about?
This dashboard displays information about the SeniorLine, a resource where individuals can receive information about services and programs for older adults in Allegheny County. SeniorLine care managers typically discuss:
- Senior center activities
- Care management
- Support for caregivers
- In-home services
- Transportation assistance
- Assistance with medication management
- Utility assistance
- Property tax and rent rebate assistance
SeniorLine Care Managers are available Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm at 412-350-5460.
What data is available?
The dashboard includes detailed information about SeniorLine interactions and communications, including call times, context, outcomes, and users. Typical callers are individuals 60 years of age or older, their families and caregivers, and other sources of support. Most individuals live within Allegheny County but there are some calls concerning people living outside of the county.
The dashboard is updated at the end of every month.
Access the report
This report was created by University of Pittsburgh and describes services offered by county Area Agency’s on Aging to help inform local strategies.
What is this report about?
This report describes the national landscape of Area Agency on Aging (AAA) services and supports, with particular focus on the services and supports of AAAs with demographically similar catchment areas to that of Allegheny County’s AAA (housed within the county’s Department of Human Services (DHS)). DHS contracted with the University of Pittsburgh to produce this report to help inform opportunities for growth and innovation.
The Aging Landscape complements the 2022 State of Aging, Disability, and Family Caregiving in Allegheny County, a comprehensive examination of Allegheny County’s aging, disabled, and informal caregiving populations conducted by the University Center for Social & Urban Research (UCSUR), the National Rehabilitation Research & Training Center on Family Support (NCFS), and the Health Policy Institute (HPI) at the University of Pittsburgh and other local organizations.
What are the takeaways?
- Fifty distinct services are provided by AAAs across the nation, with AAAs offering an average of 27 services.
- The number of services provided by AAAs with demographically similar catchment areas to that of Allegheny County DHS AAA range from 10 to 30.
- Allegheny County DHS AAA delivers a total of 18 services.
- In addition to AAA-required services (i.e., nutrition programs; evidence-based health promotion and disease prevention programs; supportive services for caregivers; and protection of the rights of older adults), a variety of supplemental services are provided by AAAs across the nation. The 10 most common supplemental services provided by AAAs include: transportation services; case management services; benefits/health insurance counseling and enrollment assistance; homemaker services; personal care services; options counseling; assessment services; elder abuse prevention and intervention services; senior center services; and long-term care ombudsman services.
- Senior center services, nutrition services (particularly in-home meal services), and information services constitute the preponderance of services among AAAs with demographically similar catchment areas to that of the Allegheny County DHS AAA.
- Innovative services and supports meriting Allegheny County DHS AAA consideration include, but are not limited to: telemedicine/telehealth services; COVID-19-related services (e.g., COVID-19 testing, vaccination); missing person programs; home sharing programs; educational programs (e.g., home safety education, medication education, life-long learning opportunities); and robotic pet support.
How is this report being used?
Aging Landscape Scan findings, along with 2022 State of Aging, Disability, and Family Caregiving in Allegheny County findings, are being used to inform the Allegheny County DHS AAA’s approach to supporting the health and well-being of Allegheny County older adults.
Current dashboard and report
What are Older Adult Protective Services?
This program provides services to vulnerable adults who are at risk of abuse, neglect or exploitation. Through a telephone hotline, residents can report allegations of harm to an older adult. Staff collect information about the allegation, investigate the situation, and, if allegations are substantiated, work with the individual on a care plan.
What data is available?
A related analytics report describes our findings. The dashboard below provides an overview of how allegations are made, investigated, and substantiated. It also provides information on:
- Number of calls to the protective services hotline
- How many allegations were investigated
- How many investigations were substantiated
- Demographics of alleged victims
The dashboard is updated yearly, when new data is available.
Trouble viewing the dashboard? You can view it directly here.
In partnership with nine community-based providers, Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) provides home-delivered meals to older adults in need. In order to learn more about meal recipient satisfaction, DHS surveyed more than 200 meal program participants. The survey found high satisfaction overall, with average scores ranging from 4.2 to 4.9 out of 5. Survey respondents rated delivery people high, while scores for taste of food and amount of food were slightly lower. Sixty-five percent of participants said that the program helped them feel less lonely, and 87% said that meal delivery helped them to remain in their own homes instead of needing a higher level of care.
Linking provider payments to performance measures is gaining popularity as a way to improve outcomes, efficiency and innovations. Three performance-based contracting models have been implemented in Allegheny County, targeting: 1) the Senior Center network; 2) child welfare providers; and 3) DHS-funded providers of the Allegheny County Jail Collaborative. Each focuses on service-related outcomes and offers fiscal incentives for improvement.
When its largest provider of Home -Delivered Meals (HDM) suddenly decided to discontinue its service, the Area Agency on Aging (AAA) had just weeks to ensure that 800 frail and disabled adults would continue to get the meals they depended upon. Partnering with six providers, AAA seized the opportunity to reshape the HDM program. By dividing the county into four geographic regions, increasing efficiencies with equipment and staffing, utilizing technology to improve routes and enabling drivers to send alerts should they observe a change in a consumer’s health or well-being, a better and more prevention-focused program resulted.
In 2011, the Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging, part of the county’s Department of Human Services, embarked on an effort to improve the quality of its Options Care Management program. The Options Care Management program provides support to more than 5,000 non-Medicaid-eligible individuals, age 60 and older, so that they may continue living in their own homes.
This report, prepared one year after the transition to the new care management model, reflects on how the AAA staff succeeded in completing this ambitious undertaking and suggests lessons for others pursuing a similar transformation.
DHS is committed to meeting the human services needs of county residents, particularly the county’s most vulnerable populations, through an extensive range of prevention, early intervention, crises management and after–care services. While system involvement is sometimes inevitable, necessary and highly beneficial to consumers, DHS believes that preventing the need for such system interventions can ultimately result in safer, healthier and more cost–effective alternatives for consumers and for the region at–large.
This report begins by presenting a framework for prevention in the human services field. It then goes on to classify and catalog all prevention efforts across DHS, including program descriptions and other key pieces of information that are important to understanding the evaluation status and priorities of each program or service.