Applying Aday and Andersen’s health services utilization model, this examination of racial disparities in women’s experience of intimate partner violence also looked at racial disparities in mental disorders and in use of mental health professionals’ help. We conducted a secondary data analysis of 6,589 women completing the National Violence Against Women Survey. Per our linear regression results, minority women, versus White, tended proportionally to seek less help from mental health professionals. Help seeking by African American women was less likely if they were using illegal drugs; among Hispanic women, additional threats from partner curtailed help seeking from mental health professionals. “Other ethnic minority” women’s help seeking decreased with their use of stimulants. Implications for intervention are discussed.

This research adopted the perspective of the multiple disadvantage model to explore racial disparities in intimate partner violence (IPV) against women and IPV’s links to social structural factors, social relationships, substance use, and health/mental health and access to related services. The study used data from 6,588 women who completed the National Violence Against Women Survey; linear regression was conducted separately for four ethnic groups. Results consistently showed physical assaults to increase with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms. For African Americans, increases in assaults were linked to injury, disclosing IPV to friends/family as well as medical professionals, Medicaid use, and drug use; decreases, in turn, were linked to past assault by ex-partners. For Latinas, increases in assaults were associated with eight factors: being married, number of ex-partners, depression, disclosing IPV to friends/family and disclosing to mental-health professionals, drug use, alcohol abstinence, and partner’s frequent alcohol use. For European Americans, increases in assaults were linked to number of ex-partners, injury, low income, Medicaid use, disclosing IPV to friends/family as well as mental-health professionals, and alcohol abstinence; decreases were associated with age and with other health insurance coverages. For women of other ethnicity, increases were linked to number of ex-partners, disclosing IPV to mental-health professionals, Medicaid use, drug use, and woman’s own as well as partner’s alcohol abstinence; decreases in this ethnicity category were linked to past assault by ex-partners. Intervention and policy implications are discussed.

This research used data concerning recipients' employment, receipt of Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), receipt of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and poverty status to develop a typology of adaptations by welfare recipients. Using U.S. Department of Labor survey data, a sample of AFDC/TANF recipients was analyzed through event history analysis. The results show that welfare reforms launched in 1996 moved dependent recipients out of welfare but had no effect on working recipients' chances of leaving welfare. New two-year limits on unbroken program participation (and a five-year lifetime limit) pushed many unprepared recipients into poverty, working or not. Economic conditions became worse for working poor people than for those on welfare. The study also found that some former welfare recipients did go to work and eventually leave welfare and poverty. Occupational skills, work experience, child support, marriage, and experience in dependency or supplementation were among the factors promoting such a change.

This secondary analysis of 5,000 African Americans and black Caribbeans explored how their use of social work services to address mental and substance use disorders was associated with the disorder involved as well as their perceived need for services, belief system, family resources, proximity to services, social–structural factors, and demographic characteristics. The sample was extracted from a national data set. Results of multinomial logistic regression showed that use of social work services was increased by dual diagnosis, substance use disorder alone, and mental disorder alone; by deteriorating mental health; by perceived stigma in treatment use; by welfare receipt and insurance coverage for mental health services; and by college graduation. Results also showed that use of services outside social work was promoted by dual diagnosis, substance use disorder alone, and mental disorder alone; by deteriorating mental health; by experience of racial discrimination; by insurance coverage for mental health services; by college education or graduation; and by female gender and increasing age. The findings' implications for social work intervention and education are discussed.

In a temporal-ordering causal analysis, we explored impacts of parent’s receipt of services and caseworker–parent collaborative engagement on substantiated child maltreatment re-report. Our sample of 2,368 parents came from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being. Using generalized estimating equations, we found likelihood of substantiated re-report to drop significantly in association with collaborative engagement, length of current in-home spell, and family income. In turn, parental alcohol dependence, initial substantiated sexual maltreatment, and prior in-home spells were linked to increased likelihood. Practice implications are discussed.