The Administration for Community Living (ACL), in collaboration with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), are excited to have launched a project with the aim to predict and prevent adult maltreatment. This project, known as Predicting Risk of Adult Maltreatment, or PRAM, will leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other “big data” tools to investigate patterns of risk and protective factors to potentially identify the “who, how, and why” of maltreatment.

Our goal is to create and improve interventions to prevent, and effectively intervene in, adult and elder maltreatment before it starts. As an outcome, PRAM is aiming to improve disabled and older adults’ quality of life and health quality overall.

The experiment will use existing data sources, where possible, including NAMRS, Census data, and Medicaid Home and Community Based Services and Medicare payment data. We’re also looking to assess the possibilities for associating disparate data sets to infer variables such as social isolation, cognitive function, dementia, and other identified risk factors.