What are these reports about?

DHS’s Strategic Initiatives are bold, transformative efforts designed to improve the effectiveness of human services for everyone. These reports describe innovative strategies aimed at supporting the people of Allegheny County and detail featured accomplishments that have strengthened essential systems in the County.  

2025 Strategic Initiatives

Strategic initiatives featured in the 2025 report include expanding caregiver support, improving access to key programs for individuals with serious mental illness and developing crisis support for families involved in the child welfare system. View the 2025 Strategic Initiatives report here.

2024 Accomplishments

During 2024, DHS and its partners made significant progress toward achieving several goals by focusing on annual Strategic Initiatives. The 2024 Accomplishments report features several accomplishments, including the launch of Allegheny Go, an increase in the number of people transitioning from shelter to permanent housing, reduced wait times for Allegheny Link, improved access to support for seniors and fewer law enforcement encounters.

Previous Reports:

• 2024 Goals and Key Initiatives
• 2023 Goals and Key Initiatives
• 2019-2020 Strategic Initiatives

 

Background

In the United States, there are barriers to accessing mental health services, especially for Medicaid recipients, who face additional challenges in receiving care compared to their peers who use private insurance. Medicaid recipients often have decreased provider acceptance rates and increased wait times for care. Reimbursement rates can influence the availability and quality of mental health services for these recipients, highlighting the importance of evaluating compensation frameworks and their impact on the access and delivery of mental health services.

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) partners with Community Care Behavioral Health (CCBH) to provide behavioral health services for Medicaid recipients. The resources (i.e. report and summary) present a decade (2010-2019) of information, encompassing claims data (i.e. billing and payment records) and rate variations. Analyzing data prior to COVID-19 ensures findings and inferences from the data reflect pre-pandemic conditions only.

What You Need to Know

The report evaluated over 1,100 behavioral health providers and over 90 service codes. The evaluation of reimbursement rates and service availability has identified some relationships between provider responsiveness and payment systems.

• A 20% increase in Medicaid reimbursement rates resulted in a 3.2% increase in services offered, demonstrating a small yet positive relationship. The increase in reimbursement rates offered a temporary increase in service provisions, but this effect was not sustainable, eventually declining or disappearing within 4-5 years. 
• Established clients made up more of scheduled visits than new patients during this time of rate and service increases.
  
• Larger providers have less challenges in adopting and adapting to rate fluctuations than smaller providers.

Why This Matters and What’s Next

In Allegheny County, Medicaid reimbursement rates are generally lower than Medicare rates. The disparity in these funding mechanisms suggests Medicaid enrollees are less attractive to providers than Medicare recipients. The analysis also suggests rate increases did not offer a sustainable solution for increased access to mental health services. Addressing system-level constraints (e.g. workforce shortages, limited facility capacity) may facilitate development of sustainable and equitable approaches to receiving care. Additionally, continued monitoring and evaluation of the needs of small providers, the disparity between Medicare and Medicaid rates, and the demand for a long-term sustainable strategy for service provisions may be particularly beneficial, as these efforts may be crucial in establishing effective and equitable health care solutions for Allegheny County and the nation.

Overview: 

In 2021 and 2022, states and localities reached historic settlements with manufacturers and distributors of opioids, as well as pharmacy chains and a consulting firm, for their roles in the opioid epidemic. The settlement funds were designed to promote the long-term goals of (1) reducing fatal overdoses and (2) reducing the harms from opioid use disorder. As a result of these settlements, Allegheny County will receive annual payments in varying amounts through at least 2038.

In 2022, Allegheny County received $8.4M and in 2023 the county received $6.05M in settlement funds. In December 2024, however, Allegheny County received $26.4M in 2024 from Opioid Settlements — a payment that is substantially larger than payments received in 2022 and 2023 and those expected in future years. In preparation for receiving the 2024 payment(s), Allegheny County solicited feedback from community members, providers, and other stakeholders through a series of listening sessions. These sessions aimed to engage and inform the public about the impact of opioids on the community and to collaboratively brainstorm solutions for opioid misuse.

What You’ll Gain from the Resources: 

The linked resources provide background on the national opioid settlements and detail how Allegheny County has allocated settlement payments to enhance the substance use services system.

The listening sessions report (2025) describes Allegheny County’s community engagement efforts and summarizes participants’ top priorities for settlement fund investments. Some major takeaways from the sessions include the need to reduce stigma, expand harm reduction services, improve access to treatment, and address housing and economic barriers that make recovery from opioid addiction hard. To learn more about community-driven priorities and planned investments, consider reading the full report.

The dashboard offers additional insights into funding distribution and shows how investments support initiatives.

Trouble viewing the dashboard below? You can view it directly here.

 

 

 

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.

How does DHS use text outreach? 

DHS uses text outreach in a variety of ways, including collecting feedback after a service touchpoint, increasing program engagement, recruiting for paid research opportunities, and providing timely alerts. Text messaging has allowed DHS to connect clients to resources at scale, and to solicit feedback from clients who would likely never otherwise have the time or opportunity to share their feedback.

What data is available?

The data brief provides more information about the communication strategy and descriptive analytics from 2018 to 2022. The interactive dashboard, which is updated daily, allows users to drill down to individual text campaigns to understand the purpose, the number of messages sent, and the demographics of people who were contacted.

Terms and Conditions

This service is used by the Allegheny County Department of Human Services to send you notifications about publicly funded services. You can cancel this service at any time. Just text “STOP” to 987987. After you send the message “STOP” to us, we will send you a reply message to confirm that you have been unsubscribed. After this, you will no longer receive messages from us. If you want to join again, just text “START” to 987987, and we will start sending messages to you again. If at any time you forget what keywords are supported, just text “HELP” to 987987 After you send the message “HELP” to us, we will respond with information about the program. Message frequency varies. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages. As always, Message and Data Rates May Apply for any messages sent to you from us and to us from you. If you have any questions about your text plan or data plan, it is best to contact your wireless provider. For all questions about the services provided by this short code, you can contact us at DHS-Research@alleghenycounty.us

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Pittsburgh-Allegheny County is one of eight sites participating in the Community Choice Demonstration (CCD) – a large-scale, multi-site randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of offering housing mobility-related services to families with children in the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. The CCD builds on prior research showing that growing up in lower-poverty neighborhoods increases children’s academic achievement, long-term earnings as adults, and selected improved health outcomes for children and adults.

What is this report about? 

This Rapid Cycle Evaluation is the first report assessing the early implementation of the Demonstration and capturing the initial impact and costs of comprehensive mobility-related services (CMRS). The report provides preliminary findings on the locational outcomes for 596 HCV families with children who enrolled in the first 8 months of the 6-year Demonstration through March 2023. This is the first of a series of reports expected over the next eight years detailing progress of the Demonstration, which began in August of 2022 and ends in October 2028.

What are the takeaways?

An analysis of 12 months of data indicates that the Demonstration is having a statistically significant, positive impact on moves to low-poverty, high opportunity areas. Almost 24% of HCV families with children who received CMRS moved to an opportunity area, compared to 4% percent of HCV families in the control group. The offer of CMRS resulted in a nearly 20 percentage point increase in the share of families moving to an opportunity area within 12 months of study enrollment.

Since 2016, Allegheny County Jail has been expanding access to MOUD to incarcerated individuals. This dashboard serves as a tool to display the current population of incarcerated individuals who are receiving MOUD in ACJ, as well as associated outcomes before and after their release.

Medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), which includes the medications buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone, is a critical component to helping individuals who are incarcerated reduce risks of overdose and relapse upon release. Individuals receiving MOUD are also more likely to continue treatment post-incarceration, which leads to better long-term recovery outcomes, like lower recidivism rates. By addressing the opioid use disorder within the jail system, communities can see a positive impact on both individual lives and broader societal health.

In May 2022, Allegheny County assembled a taskforce of leaders to reduce intimate partner violence (IPV) through improved coordination, information sharing, training, and implementation of interventions that target both those who use violence and those who are victims or survivors of it.

Historically, the County’s understanding of IPV has been based on national data, which, though useful, fails to capture local nuances that lend greater insight into specific community needs. The county published a report and dashboard to provide more local context to problems of IPV in Allegheny County by describing trends in demographics, human services involvement, and criminal histories among victims and perpetrators of intimate partner homicides (IPH). The report covers January 2017 through September 2022. The dashboard includes more recent information and is updated annually.

The analysis point to a disproportionate impact on individuals who are disadvantaged not only by their gender identity, but also by systemic racial and socioeconomic inequalities. Though IPV has traditionally been framed as an issue related to gender alone, a more intersectional understanding of risk and impact can better inform strategies for effective prevention and mitigation.

Key Findings from Report

• There were 45 victims (43 incidents) of IPV and IPV-spillover homicides from January 2017 through September 2022.
• The demographic trends among individuals involved in IPH are similar to those of overall homicides: victims and perpetrators are disproportionately Black, young (aged 25-34) and living in high-need areas. Black women represent the highest proportion of victims (37%, n=16), while Black men constitute the highest proportion of perpetrators (56%, n=23).
• Unlike homicides at large, IPH victimization disproportionately impacts women: 63% of victims of IPH are women.  While IPH accounted for roughly 7% of all homicides from January 2017 through September 2022, they made up 30% of all homicides with female victims.
• Both victims and perpetrators of IPH had high rates of involvement in human services.  74% of perpetrators had prior involvement with child welfare, publicly funded behavioral health, or homeless and housing systems.
• 58% of victims had prior involvement with child welfare, publicly funded behavioral health, or homeless and housing systems.
• Across all gender, race and role categories, about 53% of individuals involved in IPH – 47 of 88 – had criminal justice involvement at some point prior to the homicide incident: 63% of perpetrators (27 of 43) and 44% of victims (20 of 45). Among perpetrators with criminal justice involvement, both Black and White men had higher rates of involvement than either Black or White women.
• Roughly 24% of all IPV perpetrators had indicators of IPV history in either the criminal courts or child protection system. This is likely an undercount of true IPV history, as data limitations, legal restrictions and underreporting make identification of non-fatal IPV in the data difficult. Among those with domestic violence related criminal cases, the majority occurred in the 18 months prior to the homicide incident.

Read more about the county’s IPV work here.

 

 

Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) developed these publicly available, interactive dashboards in collaboration with resolve Crisis Services, the County’s provider for the 24-hour, 365-day mental health crisis service provided free to all Allegheny County residents.

These dashboards provide information about:

Crisis Calls: Overview of call volume to resolve Crisis Services through 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline and resolve’s 24-hour hotline 1-888-7-YOU-CAN (796-8226), consumer wait time to reach call clinician, abandoned call rate, and demographics of person-in-crisis who received call services. Aggregate call information is from April 2021 to present and is updated monthly. Demographic information is available from March 2023 to present and is updated monthly.

Mobile Team Dispatches: Overview of mobile team dispatch volume, consumer wait time, reasons for mobile team dispatch, dispatch rate by neighborhood, and demographics of people-in-crisis who received mobile interventions. Information is available from September 2023 to present. Data updated monthly.

Police Involvement: Percentages of calls and mobile team dispatches with police involvements. Information is available from September 2023 to present. Data updated monthly.

Making good, informed decisions about how to allocate limited resources is an ever-evolving process. The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) strives to make the most equitable decisions when allocating scarce resources for individuals and families in need. Housing is a critical resource for which demand far exceeds supply; thus, DHS is dedicated to making sure that those most at need have priority for the housing services that are available. Since 2017, DHS has developed predictive risk models that utilize administrative data to assign a risk score that is used to determine the appropriate course of action. Two of these models were developed to support prioritization of housing resources.

Allegheny Housing Assessment (AHA)

In 2020, DHS launched the Allegheny Housing Assessment (AHA), a decision support tool designed to help prioritize admissions to supportive housing services for individuals or families experiencing homelessness. The AHA forms the infrastructure for DHS’s coordinated entry system for those in a housing crisis.

The tool uses administrative data from Allegheny County’s data warehouse to predict the likelihood of three types of events occurring in a person’s life if they remain unhoused over the next 12 months: 1) a mental health inpatient stay, 2) a jail booking and 3) frequent use (4 or more visits) of hospital emergency rooms.  These events serve as indicators of harm if a person remains unhoused. The AHA assigns a risk score that is used as part of the housing prioritization process; it is far more objective and unbiased than earlier assessment tools and it doesn’t require the time or trauma associated with asking sensitive questions at the time of housing crisis.

Select from the following documents to learn more about the AHA tool:

• • • Using Predictive Risk Modeling to Prioritize Services for People Experiencing Homelessness in Allegheny County: Methodology Report for the Allegheny Housing Assessment Tool (September 2020)
    • Methodology Update (December 2020)
    • Frequently asked questions about the implementation of the Allegheny Housing Assessment tool
    • Summary of client feedback on the new housing prioritization process
    • Independent ethical/data science review of the Allegheny Housing Assessment
    • DHS’s response to the ethical review

Mental Health – Allegheny Housing Assessment (MH-AHA)

After a couple of years of experience with the AHA, DHS leadership realized that a similar tool could help prioritize admissions to residential services for individuals with a diagnosis of serious and persistent mental illness. Using the AHA as a starting point, the team developed the Mental Health – Allegheny Housing Assessment (MH-AHA) and launched it in February 2023.

Similar to the AHA, the MH-AHA utilizes administrative data from Allegheny County’s data warehouse to predict the likelihood of two potential types of adverse events that may occur in an individual’s life if they do not receive adequate support for their MH condition over the next 12 months: 1) a mental health inpatient stay and 2) frequent use [4 or more visits] of hospital emergency departments. These events serve as indicators of harm and are things we would like to prevent. The MH-AHA assigns a risk score that is used as part of the prioritization process. Individuals who are not eligible or who do not receive a risk score likely to lead to a placement in the near future will be introduced to other supportive services options instead of waiting a long time on a waiting list for a placement that might not occur.

By prioritizing those most in need of MH residential services, the MH-AHA will simplify the referral process, decrease uncertainty and reduce wait times. In addition, it will help Allegheny County document unmet MH residential needs created by the gap between limited MH residential resources and the number of high-risk eligible individuals. An external impact evaluation by researchers at Stanford will document progress toward these goals.

Select from the following documents to learn more about the MH-AHA:

• • • Methodology Report for the Mental Health-Allegheny Housing Assessment Tool (November 2023)
    • Frequently asked questions about the implementation of the Mental Health-Allegheny Housing Assessment Tool
    • Video overview of Mental Health – Allegheny Housing Assessment Tool to Behavioral Health Providers (July 2024)

From May through August 2024, Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) engaged in a comprehensive needs assessment. The purpose of the assessment was to determine how DHS can best address the needs of individuals and families living in poverty and promote stability and economic security using Community Service Block Grant (CSBG) funds and other flexible funding across the agency. The assessment included collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from community members and service providers.

Read the new report here.

What are the takeaways?

• Despite a decrease in the overall poverty rate, there remain deep disparities in poverty by demographic groups. Black people, women with children and people with less than a high school diploma experience poverty at twice to three times Allegheny County’s rate.
• Finding job opportunities was the number one challenge reported by survey respondents seeking employment. Additional barriers to employment include transportation and resumé/application preparation.
• Workforce participant engagement for those receiving SNAP and TANF (i.e., those with low income, for whom relevant data are available) increased from 2021 to 2022, possibly explained by COVID-related participation extensions. The demand for job readiness/training programs among this population, particularly for SNAP recipients who are female and Black, is expected to increase further as SNAP work requirement waivers expire in 2025.

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.

Allegheny County residents face significant challenges in accessing behavioral health services, an issue highlighted by recent studies and surveys. Notably, a Countywide survey revealed that 42.7% of respondents believe improving access to mental health care, particularly for young people, should be a priority. This finding is supported by research from the University of Pittsburgh, which documented long wait times for appointments and challenges in connecting with providers. These issues stem from a critical shortage of behavioral health professionals and are compounded by time-consuming provider search processes.

In response, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS), along with Community Care Behavioral Health (CCBH), the County’s behavioral health managed care organization, are pursuing a series of investments and initiatives aimed at addressing these barriers and increasing service availability.

To improve access and reduce wait times, DHS and CCBH are focusing on:

• Creating visibility into appointment availability so clients and providers spend less time searching for services.
• Supporting the behavioral health workforce through loan repayment and cohort-based training programs to increase the number of providers.
• Investing in community-based mental health supports to offer additional options outside the traditional system.
• Expanding access to proven treatments like medication-assisted therapy for opioid addiction, cognitive behavioral therapy and group therapy.
• Augmenting clinical decision-making to ensure those who need help most get it quickly

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) funds programs to assist young adults who are transitioning out of the child welfare system (also known as transition-aged youth) to secure employment, education, housing, behavioral health services, financial advice and more. Despite these service offerings, transition-aged youth have higher rates of homelessness, substance use, mental health challenges and incarceration, as well as lower rates of high school graduation compared with people who were not involved with the child welfare system. While targeted services are important, some human service needs result from poverty, which can be mitigated by providing direct financial assistance.

What is this report about?

In the summer of 2023, DHS launched a direct cash support program called Cash Assistance for Allegheny Young Adults (CAAYA), which provided a one-time payment of $4,000 to young adults, ages 18 through 22, with a history in the child welfare system, who were experiencing homelessness or were young parents who had an open case with Allegheny County’s child welfare office. In this report, we present a mixed-methods approach to evaluating the impact of CAAYA, including longitudinal surveying, a quasi-experimental analysis of administrative data in the Allegheny County Data Warehouse, and semi-structured interviews with cash recipients.

What are the takeaways?

• CAAYA recipients demonstrated significant financial need. At the launch of the program, only 35% reported being currently employed and only 29% reported being in school either full-time or part-time. Those who had some form of formal employment in the 12 months before the program had mean annual earnings of $10,174. Twenty-eight percent had one or more children.
• CAAYA recipients also lacked financial support within their community. Two-thirds of recipients reported not knowing anyone who would lend them $500 in a time of crisis.
• Overall, the program encouraged about 100 individuals to open a bank account. Seventy-five percent (n = 774) of recipients chose to receive the money via bank account transfer and 25% via a virtual gift card.
• Recipients used the cash assistance quickly. On average, $2,769 of the $4,000 was spent within the first month.
• Car-related expenses ranked as the number one item for planned expenditures, and there was a 41% relative increase in car ownership three months after receiving the money.
• The program improved self-reported well-being after receiving financial assistance, but the effects faded in the subsequent months.
• CAAYA recipients increased their use of mental health outpatient therapy by 7% compared to a control group of individuals who were narrowly ineligible for the program. There was no change in utilization of crisis and inpatient services. In contrast to self-reported well-being, the program’s impact on usage of outpatient mental health services persisted for at least eight months after receiving funds.

How is this report being used?

As a result of this program, we are exploring additional opportunities to leverage cash assistance with this population to increase engagement in holistic supports and services. We are also considering longer-term programs with more frequent, smaller payments to targeted populations.  For future programs, we hope to receive state waivers for the impact of cash assistance on public benefits, especially if a program is designed to include ongoing payments.

For other local governments or providers who are considering cash assistance programs, we hope this report serves as a resource for program design and evaluation. Local governments should note that the success of the CAAYA program would not have been possible without our partner organizations. Trust in government significantly impacts the accessibility of services, particularly for marginalized communities. When first hearing about the cash assistance, many individuals who were eligible to receive the money thought that it was a scam. This skepticism was eased by having multiple trusted intermediaries ensure that it was a real program and that they should apply.

The 2008 Act 33 Amendment to the Pennsylvania Child Protective Services law requires state and local reviews of all child fatalities and near fatalities that result from suspected child abuse. In response, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services (DHS) conducts a comprehensive and multidisciplinary review of child fatalities and near fatalities in cases where there is suspicion of child abuse or neglect. These reviews are a component of DHS’s continuous quality improvement process.

What is this report about?

This report covers child fatalities and near fatalities (critical incidents) in Allegheny County reviewed in 2022 and 2023 with a focus on drug ingestions, which have been a growing cause of these critical incidents. The increase in child ingestions and fatalities has been a nationwide trend in recent years and has worsened amidst the nation’s opioid epidemic. The County seeks to understand how these incidents happen and the circumstances surrounding them so that it can develop strategies to minimize them.

What are the takeaways?

• There were 50 critical incidents that occurred during 2022 and 2023. Forty percent (20) of these incidents were the result of unintentional drug ingestion. Unintentional ingestion comprised one-third of the 2022 incidents, rising to nearly one-half in 2023. The number of ingestion-related incidents has been rising year-over-year since 2019 and has been the primary cause of the County’s fatalities and near fatalities since 2022, surpassing blunt force or penetrating trauma and abusive head trauma.
• In 18 of the 20 ingestion cases, at least one of the substances ingested was an opioid. Eighty-six percent of the near fatal and 100% of the fatal ingestions involved opioids.
• The majority (70%) of ingestions occurred in children below the age of three. 40% of victims of ingestions were between one and two years of age compared to 27% of victims of non-ingestion fatalities and near fatalities. This age group are especially at risk for unintentional ingestion as they begin to gain mobility, which increases the likelihood of coming into contact with substances.
• Only 4 (20%) families of ingestion-related critical incidents had active child welfare involvement at the time of the incident, though three quarters (15) of families had a history of child welfare involvement prior to the ingestion incident.
• Sixty-six percent of alleged perpetrators in ingestion cases had received publicly funded substance use disorder services prior to the critical incident.  However, there was a reduction in engagement with these services within a year (43%) and within a month (36%) prior to the critical incident.
• Of the known alleged perpetrators in ingestion cases, 41% had utilized medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) at some point before the critical incident. There was a steady decrease in MOUD use leading up to the critical incident with 31% using MOUD within the year and 13% within the month prior to the critical incident. 

How is this report being used?

Allegheny County is taking an active role in addressing the ramifications of the opioid epidemic and the rising trend of unintentional ingestions. This includes enhanced training for Child welfare staff and access to naloxone, lockboxes and fentanyl test strips for caseworkers to provide to clients. The County, through its opioid settlement funds, has expanded convenient access to MOUD and evidence-based treatment (e.g., mobile medication, telemedicine prescribing, and incentives for abstinence from stimulants and opioids) and launched a Countywide marketing campaign in April 2024 warning about the dangers of opioid ingestions and the safety of administering naloxone to children. In addition, it has invested in preventative programming like residential substance use disorder treatment that allows families to reside together during a person’s treatment and in the Hello Baby approach, a collaboration which is designed for parents with newborns to improve family outcomes and maximize child and family well-being, safety and security.

Other information

Explore updated annual data and prior reports here.

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.