The Administration for Community Living (ACL) maintains the National Adult Maltreatment Reporting System (NAMRS), “the first comprehensive, national reporting system for adult protective services (APS) programs.” It “collects quantitative and qualitative data on APS practices and policies, and the outcomes of investigations into the maltreatment of older adults and adults with disabilities."
The system “consist[s] of three components”:
(1) Descriptive data on state agency and practices from all states through the “Agency Component,” and
(2) Case-level, non-identifiable data on persons who receive an investigation by APS in response to an allegation of abuse, neglect, or exploitation through “Case Component”, or
(3) For states that are unable to submit a case-level file through the “Case Component,” a “Key Indicators Component” will be available for them to submit data on a smaller set of core items.
Per ACL, the system collects “no personally identifiable information”. States submit their data to NAMRS annually, and on a voluntary basis. According to ACL’s most recent Adult Maltreatment Report, all states and territories submit at least some data to NAMRS: 62% submit the case and agency components, 29% submit the key indicator and agency components, and 9% submit only the agency component.
Our FOIA request 📄 seeks all database records in NAMRS, excluding fields containing sensitive user information. It also seeks all relevant database documentation.
Note: Some database documentation can already be found in ACL’s information collection review package for NAMRS, as well as in a report by the contractor that built the system.