What is this dashboard about?

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) partnered with Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) to launch a transportation assistance program called Allegheny Go. This program offers half-price PRT rides for county residents ages 12 to 64 who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, and do not receive any other transit fare discounts. 

Allegheny Go builds on the success of the Allegheny County Discounted Fares Pilot Program, which ran from November 2022 through June 2024.  

This dashboard describes the application process and reports on application statistics and participant demographics.  

How is this dashboard being used?

DHS has set a goal of enrolling 15,000 participants in Allegheny Go. This dashboard tracks progress towards that goal. Staff monitor how many applications are received, how many are eligible, and make sure eligible participants receive their discounts.  

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.

Since 2016, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) in Pennsylvania has utilized the Allegheny Family Screening Tool (AFST), which assists child welfare call screening caseworkers in their assessment of general protective service (GPS) referrals regarding potential child maltreatment.

What is this report about?

This report reviews the research evidence on algorithms in child welfare, specifically focusing on the causal impacts of the AFST and comparable predictive risk models (PRMs). It begins by summarizing the influence of these tools on child welfare decisions. The report then explores the discrepancies between perceived and actual effects of these models, highlighting the importance of bridging the gap between perception and reality to alleviate concerns and maximize the effectiveness of these tools.

What are the takeaways?

The impacts of predictive risk models in child welfare must be compared with alternative approaches to augmenting call screening caseworker decision-making. Traditional risk assessments in child welfare have been largely manual, prone to inconsistencies, and often omit critical information. Before implementing the AFST, Allegheny County did not employ any structured risk assessment.

The main conclusions from recent research on the AFST are:

• The AFST changed the composition of investigated referrals. The introduction of the AFST decreased the probability of investigation for referrals with low risk of removal and increased the probability of investigation among referrals with high risk of removal. The introduction of the AFST also reduced the racial gap in investigation rates, particularly among higher risk referrals.
• The AFST is reducing, not increasing, racial disparities. Researchers found that the introduction of the model reduced racial disparities in investigation rates across AFST scores, although the size and precision of the reduction varied. The AFST reduced the racial disparity in investigation rates for the highest risk referrals by 83%, from 10.6% to 1.8%. The researchers estimated that the AFST reduced the Black–White gap in removal rates of screened-in referrals by 73%, from 4.3% to 1.2%.
• Screeners use the algorithm but with caution. Researchers found that call screening case workers are integrating information from the AFST effectively, aligning their decisions more closely with predicted removal risk compared with the period before the tool’s introduction. The tool is seen as a helpful source of additional information rather than a replacement for professional judgment. 

How is this report being used?

The application of algorithms to support decision-making, especially in sensitive areas like child welfare, mandates high transparency. It is critical that the complexities of predictive risk models are communicated clearly to all stakeholders to maintain trust and prevent misuse. DHS is committed to keeping the public informed about the use and impact of algorithms at the Department and draw upon current research to shape the implementation of these tools in the field.

Read more about AFST here.

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.

 

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Previous reports in this series 

• 2018 update (all county)
  • 2018 Storymap
• 2014 update (suburbs)
• 2012 update (suburbs)
• 2000-2009 (suburbs)
• 2000-2012 (city)

Previous datasets in this series

• 2018 (all county)
• 2014 (suburbs)
• 2000-2012 (city)

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) partnered with Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) to launch a new transportation assistance program in November 2022 called the Discounted Fares Pilot. This program offered free and reduced-price PRT rides for county residents ages 18 to 64 who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, along with their 6- to 17-year-old children. The fare discounts were allocated using a lottery. Each household in the pilot was randomly assigned to one of three groups, each with equal probability. One group received unlimited free PRT trips, a second group received a 50% discount on all PRT trips, and a third group received no discount. The fare discounts lasted for at least 12 months for the free-fare and half-fare groups.  

What is this report about?

This report first describes the results from the first year of the pilot.  It describes the design of the pilot, the characteristics of the participants and provides estimates of the causal impact of the fare discounts on travel behavior and health care utilization.  It also reports on impacts on self-reported outcomes related to employment, financial stability, and well-being.

What are the takeaways?

• A total of 9,544 adults and 4,928 children enrolled in the Pilot during the three-month open enrollment period. The majority of adult participants were female (72%) and Black (59%). Participants reported taking an average of ten PRT trips per week and spending an average of nearly $30 on public transportation per week at the time they enrolled in the Pilot.
• Most participants successfully received their Pilot-issued farecard and used the card at least one time. 90 percent of adults in the free-fares group tapped their assigned farecard at least once. 82 percent of the half-fares group and 81 percent of the no-discount group tapped their farecard at least once. The majority of farecard non-users likely never received their assigned card.
• Larger fare discounts resulted in greater use of Pilot-issued farecards. Participants in the half-fares group tapped their assigned farecards an average of 1.6 more times per week than the no-discount group. Participants in the free-fares group tapped their assigned farecards an average of 3.3 more times per week than the half-fare group. 
• The fare discounts yielded improvements in certain measures of financial savings and transportation security. In particular, the free fares reduced self-reported weekly spending on PRT trips by more than $17 relative to no discount while there was an $8.92 decrease in weekly spending on average for the 50% discount group. Free fares led to a 26 percentage-point decrease, while 50% discounts resulted in a 10 percentage-point drop in the self-reported likelihood of missing work or other appointments in the past four weeks due to transportation issues.
• Discounted fares had limited effects on health care utilization, with no clear patterns emerging in terms of increased or decreased use of care. The fare discounts had no discernible impact on participants’ likelihood of receiving Medicaid-funded health care in the first 270 days after they enrolled in the Pilot.

How is this being used? 

DHS is using the Pilot results to better understand the ways that low-income households may benefit from reduced PRT fares. We will continue to refine our understanding by analyzing longer-term outcomes and by incorporating insights from qualitative interviews that were conducted with a subset of participants. These findings will be shared in a future publication.

DHS has also used the preliminary Pilot results to inform the design and implementation of a longer-term program that will offer a 50% PRT discount for working-age county SNAP beneficiaries and their children. This new program, called Allegheny Go, is scheduled to launch in June 2024.

Other information

Research Plan

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.

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.

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.

Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) believes that appropriate sharing of client information is essential to the provision, continuity and overall quality of care provided to DHS clients. It has created a number of tools and mechanisms to facilitate this sharing, including the creation of tools for contracted providers to access information on clients they are serving and mechanisms for providers to safely and security share client information back with DHS. Read more about this here and access the tools through the below links.

Where can I access provider tools?

Links to clientivew, a tool for individual care coordination, and provider connect, a tool for to support provider decision-making, are found here. You can also access data exchange, one of the tools that providers can use to securely share information back with DHS.

How I can gain access to these tools if I don’t already have it?

If you are a contracted provider with DHS, you can request access to provider tools through DHS’s application support portal.

What is the Allegheny County Data Warehouse?

The Allegheny County Data Warehouse brings together and integrates client and service data from a wide variety of sources both internal and external to the County.

How was the Data Warehouse developed?

The Data Warehouse was created by consolidating publicly-funded human services data (e.g., behavioral health, child welfare, developmental supports, homelessness and aging) and, over time, expanded to include data from other sources. The Data Warehouse was made possible with support from the Human Service Integration Fund, a flexible funding pool created by a coalition of local foundations for the purpose of supporting integration and innovation within DHS.

How does the Data Warehouse support of the work of Allegheny County?

The Data Warehouse was designed primarily to improve services to clients, but also to improve the ability of workers to perform their jobs and to support management decisionmaking; it is also intended to be available as a community resource, making data and information publicly available whenever possible.

Where can I learn more?

• This overview document describes the development of the Data Warehouse, the County’s data sharing partnerships, and how the data is utilized to support client services and decisionmaking. 

• The Data Warehouse has also been covered extensively by the media and other researchers:
  • Better Government Through Data: Using Allegheny County Data Warehouse to design more effective results for clients and the public
  Institute for Excellence in Government, Harvard University, October 2020
• • How Data Powers Help for Families
    PostIndustrial.Com, January 27, 2021
  • Software for the Social Good: One County’s Model Warehouse
    Government Technology, December 1, 2017
  • How Allegheny County’s Data Warehouse is improving human services through integrated data
    GovInnovator podcast, February 17, 2016
  • Data Warehouses: Using New Technology to Improve Human Services Administration
    Re-Issue of June 11, 2014 article below
    Government Technology, June 12, 2014
  • Allegheny County, Pennsylvania: Department of Human Services’ Data Warehouse
    Data-Smart City Solutions, Harvard University, June 11, 2014
  • Gaining Ground: A Guide to Facilitating Technology Innovation in Human Services
    Data-Smart City Solutions, Harvard University, May 28, 2014
  • Allegheny County’s Data Warehouse: Leveraging Data to Enhance Human Service Programs and Policies
    University of Pennsylvania, May 2014
  • Human Services: Sustained and Coordinated Efforts Could Facilitate Data-Sharing While Protecting Privacy
    U.S. Government Accountability Office, February 2013

What is the DHS case competition?

Each year, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) hosts a competition for local graduate students that challenges interdisciplinary teams to solve a problem in local government.

What information is available?

Yearly reports, below, describe the case topic and students’ proposed solutions. A short video explains the event.

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All reports

In its responsibility for administering publicly-funded human services, Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) plans for the allocation of more than $1B in areas that span behavioral health, children and families, aging, housing and homelessness, and intellectual disability and autism services.

How does DHS plan its allocation of resources?

DHS planning activities are ongoing and iterative. They include:

• Engaging stakeholders through
  • Annual public hearings
  • Public surveys via Allegheny Engage
  • Regular advisory board and committee meetings
• Targeted outreach to clients, providers, and other stakeholders on specific questions/priorities (e.g., Crisis Response Stakeholder Group, etc.
• Analyzing client data to identify gaps, and to compare our current state against expected outcomes
• Consulting experts, best practice literature, research

What is the County Human Services Plan?

The County Human Services Plan consolidates planning requirements for categorical components of the Human Services Block Grant, including Mental Health Community Base-Funded Services, Behavioral Health Services Initiative (BHSI), Intellectual Disabilities Community Base-Funded Services, Act 152 of 1988 Drug and Alcohol Services, Homeless Assistance Program Funding, and Human Services Development Funds. It is submitted annually to the PA Department of Human Services, 60 days after the agency releases its annual bulletin (usually in the summer).

What is the Needs-Based Plan and Budget?

The Needs-Based Plan and Budget articulates Allegheny County’s priorities, planned services, and resource needs for serving children and families – in particular those children and families who are involved with, or at risk of involvement with, the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. It is submitted annually to the PA Department of Human Services, Office of Children, Youth & Families (the budget narrative submission deadline is August 15^th every year).

State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2024-25

• Plan
• Summary
• Hearing Video

Older plans:

• SFY 2023-24
• SFY 2022-23
• SFY 2021-22
• SFY 2020-21
• SFY 2019-20

What is the Area Agency on Aging Strategic Plan?

The Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging (AAA) is part of a nationwide aging network led by the U.S. Administration on Community Living and the Pennsylvania Department on Aging (PDA). Every four years, PDA requires each of the Commonwealth’s fifty-two (52) Area Agencies on Aging to submit an action plan for the following four years. This Four-Year Plan considers the demographic trends of the region, the changing needs of the consumers, and the current services provided by the Allegheny County AAA.

Additionally, every year the Allegheny County AAA releases Program Updates and a Budget Prospectus, as well as an Annual Report.

• SFY 2022-23 Report
• SFY 2022-23 Budget Prospectus
• 2020-2024 Four Year Plan
• SFY 2021-22 Budget Prospectus
• 2016-2020 Four Year Plan

Community Services Needs Assessment & Strategic Plan

Allegheny County DHS is the designated community action agency for the receipt of the County’s (outside the City of Pittsburgh) Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) funds. CSBG is a federally funded block grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, Office of Community Services that supports services aiming to alleviate the causes and conditions of poverty in under resourced communities. CSBG recipients are required to conduct a needs assessment and develop a strategic plan no less than every 5 years.  

• 2022 Report
• 2021 Strategic Plan for Community Action
• 2021 Community Needs Assessment: Economic Security

Housing and Homelessness

Allegheny County DHS, through its Office of Community Services, is the designated Infrastructure Organization and United Funding Agency for the Allegheny County Continuum of Care (CoC) – the network of services and stakeholders engaged in making homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring. Starting in 2016, the CoC underwent a community planning process to create its strategic plan. The strategic planning process is summarized in Preventing and Ending Homelessness – Community Strategic Planning Process. Principles guiding the strategic plan can be found in the Guiding Principles: Allegheny County Plan to Prevent & End Homelessness. The working board of the CoC, the Homeless Advisory Board (HAB), voted to accept the plan on July 25, 2017.

• Allegheny County Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness

Opioid Settlement Funding

• 2024 Annual Report on Opioid Settlement

• Opioid Settlement Plan

Other plans

• Community Violence Reduction Plan
• COVID-19 Response Plan
• 2019-20 Strategic Initiatives and Final Report
• Latino Community Center Strategic Plan

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.

In 2022, staff at the Urban Institute partnered with the Allegheny County DHS and the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center (WPRDC) to pilot synthetic data generation at the local level, to help understand the unique challenges that might face state and local governments in generating synthetic data. Each record in the synthetic dataset represents a simulated individual, or record, who received at least one service from the Allegheny County DHS in 2021. The synthetic data were designed such that records aggregated by service represent the original data. Read more here about synthetic data.

Why create a synthetic dataset?

The Department of Human Services (DHS) in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, serves one in five residents of the county every year through child welfare services, behavioral health services, aging services, developmental support services, homeless and housing supports, and family strengthening and youth supports. In the process, data are collected about these services and the population using them. These data are integrated at the individual level to allow for better care coordination, operational improvements, and program evaluation. Because of the dataset’s sensitive nature, it cannot be widely shared at an individual level, so synthetic data are used in the real dataset’s place—allowing the data to be publicly shared and helping stakeholders, including researchers, service providers, and members of the public, understand these populations better.

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) engages clients and others who interact with DHS programs in a variety of ways: regular roundtables/cabinets (e.g., Children’s Cabinet); town halls and community forums; social media (e.g., Facebook and LinkedIn); and the Director’s Action Line (DAL). In 2018, DHS expanded its public engagement strategy to include SMS text messaging (texting), a tool that is convenient for recipients and allows DHS to scale up communication with clients and other Allegheny County residents.

What is this report about?

This data brief describes DHS’s texting outreach from 2018 to 2022.  This brief outlines the different distribution paths and mechanisms that DHS uses for text outreach, and characterizes the number and content of text messages sent, the demographics of the text recipients, and the impact of DHS’s text outreach thus far.

What are the takeaways?

• From 2018 through 2022, DHS sent 832,038 text messages to 151,707 phone numbers.  Over the same time period, DHS received 193,283 messages in response from 19,185 phone numbers.
• The content type of the text messages sent over this time period can be categorized as follows: program outreach (48%), data collection (44%), alerts (7%), and public policy updates (1%).
• The subject of the text messages sent over this time period are diverse, but a disproportionate share (72%) are about transportation, due to the extensive use of text messaging for outreach and data collection in relation to the Allegheny County Discounted Fares Pilot program.
• In 2021, 74% of text messages were related to one of the following initiatives: COVID-19 rental assistance, the Older Youth Pandemic Relief program, or information about free tax preparation services.
• In 2022, 88% of text messages were related to one of the following initiatives: the Allegheny County Discounted Fares program, the SNAP fresh access program, or recruitment and outreach for paid research opportunities with university partners.
• Text messaging has allowed DHS to connect clients to resources at scale, and to elicit feedback from clients who would likely never otherwise have the time or opportunity to share their feedback.  Examples of this described in the brief include text outreach associated with the Older Youth Pandemic Relief program, and text message surveys sent to clients who use Family Center services.

How is this report being used?

The county is interested in innovative and effective ways to outreach and engage with clients.  We believe that text messaging is one way to do this at scale.  The county is using the information presented in this report to inform overall strategy about how we best engage and use client feedback information to improve programs and increase overall access to social services.