Expanding the Utility of Race-Based Accountability: An Application of RBA to Longitudinal Data Analyses

• Published date: 01 January 2019
• Date: 01 January 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/2153368718811046
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article
Race and Justice
2019, Vol. 9(1) 60-79
Expanding the Utility of
ª The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/2153368718811046
An Application of RBA to
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Longitudinal Data Analyses
Andrea L. Ruiz1, Gabriel A. Acevedo2,
Raquel R. Marquez1, and Marcos Marquez3
Abstract
Despite the strong empirical evidence linking childhood abuse to negative mental
health outcomes later in life, a number of questions remain regarding race var-
iations in this association. Moreover, less is known about the salience of pro-
tective factors that can offset or ameliorate the negative effects of abuse on adult
mental health, and whether these factors work differently by race. Using three
waves of panel data from a nationally representative survey of American adults,
the present study examined the long-term effects of childhood abuse on adult
mental health over a span of 20 years. In addition, we assessed social support as a
protective factor, and examined its differential effects on mental health outcomes
for Whites and non-Whites. Results indicate that despite frequent childhood
abuse, social support is associated with less depression for Whites—its positive
effects being most pronounced for those with the most severe abuse experiences.
However, social support is associated with worst depression for non-Whites—its
negative effects being most pronounced for those with severe abuse experiences.
These findings demonstrate that the factors commonly considered as protective
and beneficial for adult victims of abuse work differently across racial groups and
in fact, may be detrimental for non-Whites.
1 The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA
2 St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, TX, USA
3 Clear Impact LLC, Rockville, MD, USA
Corresponding Author:
Andrea L. Ruiz, The University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249, USA.
Email: andrea.ruiz@utsa.edu

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Keywords
child abuse, national crime victimization survey (NCVS) 120, African/Black Americans,
race/ethnicity, Latino/Hispanic Americans, race/ethnicity, domestic violence,
victimization, Latin Americans, race/ethnicity
Researchers in the social sciences must often navigate personal considerations as
members of a society that is structured and organized in a manner that perpetuates
social inequalities, whilst maintaining a level of scientific “objectivity” when
empirically evaluating these same social disparities. In fact, as early as 1917, when
discussing the role of the teacher in the social science classroom, the renowned
economic sociologist Max Weber remarked as follows:
politics is out of place in the lecture-room . . . . One can only demand of the teacher that
he have the intellectual integrity to see that it is one thing to state facts . . . .while it is
another thing to answer questions of the value of culture . . . the prophet and the dema-
gogue do not belong on the academic platform . . . whenever the man of science intro-
duces his personal value judgment, a full understanding of the facts ceases. (Weber,
1946, p. 145)
This direct and classic assessment, from one of the generally agreed upon founders
of modern sociology, sums up one of the central dilemmas faced by many scholars and
researchers in academia: How to balance personal political commitment and beliefs
with the expectations of rigorous, objective social science. Similarly, engaging social
problems in a way that mitigates against the causes of problematic social outcomes
can often become a secondary preoccupation for researchers who are increasingly
required to publish in select journals, receive external grant funding, and speak to a
largely academic audience at the expense of the community at large. Under such
expectations, it is no surprise many faculty feel constrained and silenced in terms
of political voice, particularly at the early stages of careers, when the quest for tenure
positions is of central concern to most in the profession (Collins, 2005; Eagan &
Garvey, 2015; Harper, 2012).
More recently, critical race theorists like Patricia Hill Collins (2000) have shed
light on the ways that knowledge accumulation under the guise of “science” in the
American academy, cannot be fully understood without taking into account the
racialized and sexist institutional practices that have long marginalized persons of
color within the academy (Collins, 1986). Writers like Collins rightly point out the
peripheral location of scholarship that addresses issues related to the exploitation,
exclusion, and oppression of Black women in American society. As a sociologist,
Collins is also able to show how, within higher educational structures, Black women’s
intellectual voices are often stifled in the name of “scientific rigor.” Furthermore,
intellectual achievements that are synthesized with social activism are devalued to the
point of being seen as disconcerting; possibly dangerous. As Collins argues, “a good
deal of U.S. black feminist thought must adhere to the disciplinary procedures of the

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Race and Justice 9(1)
academy. Elevating black feminist thought to the level of theory and devaluing black
women’s activism as less theoretical are strategies that aim to contain them both.
Moreover, such actions place U.S. black feminist thought in the academy under
surveillance” (2000, p. 282). Such an institutional orientation is distressing on many
levels but in an earlier work, Collins highlights the overall loss to intellectual inquiry
occurring when voices that hold a distinct standpoint are ignored altogether.
Sociologists might benefit greatly from serious consideration of the emerging, cross-
disciplinary literature that I label black feminist thought, precisely because, for many
Afro-American female intellectuals, “marginality” has been an excitement to creativity.
As outsiders within, black feminist scholars may be one of many distinct groups of
marginal intellectuals whose standpoints promise to enrich contemporary sociological
discourse. Bringing this group—as well as others who share an outsider within status vis-
a-vis sociology—into the center of analysis may reveal aspects of reality obscured by
more orthodox approaches. (Collins, 1986, p. S15)
Such considerations are salient when research aims to address social inequalities
and the human costs of public policies that favor certain groups at the expense of
others. Furthermore, the suggestion that social activism and intellectual inquiry are
incompatible misses a key dimension of social research, namely the ability of social
scientific research to illuminate and inform discussions related to inequality, oppres-
sive social structures, and marginality. These issues impact academics working at
institutions that increasingly place a premium on evidence based, quantitative
results that are understood as “objective” and that are consequently removed from
the activist commitments that faculty members may hold, and in which they may
place great importance.
While explicitly answering these questions is outside the scope of this article,
framing this study with these workplace tensions in mind allows the asking of
questions about Results-Based Accountability (RBA) and its potential to provide a
bridge between research and community engagement. RBA is often used in areas of
community engagement, social service provision, and needs assessment research; yet
the empirical application of RBA highlights the descriptive, univariate measurement
of data-driven outcomes and it does this with less focus on factors more conducive to
multivariate statistical techniques such as linear, logistic, and hierarchical regression.
The authors hope to contribute to RBA-driven research and outcome reporting by
presenting the results of complex statistical models that conceptually align with the
RBA framework. Substantively, this research explores the long-term effects of
childhood abuse on adult mental health outcomes. The researchers estimate the effects
of social support in the relationship between childhood abuse and mental health by
examining panel data that trace the life trajectories of a random sample of Americans.
The study intentionally uses the RBA method by estimating a series of multivariate
models that conceptualize social support as an intervention that “turns the curve.”
With this overall aim in mind, the remaining sections of the article will proceed as
follows. The researchers first offer an overview of RBA and its previous application in

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published scholarly research. The researchers then discuss the growing body of work
that explores childhood maltreatment and its effects on later life outcomes, and then
provide several hypotheses informed by the RBA framework. The empirical com-
ponent of the article discusses the data source, and provides descriptive information of
the data, with an emphasis on operationalized focal measures of childhood abuse,
mental health outcomes, and statistical controls. The authors next turn to the central
results of their study, and present estimates from random-effects regression models
predicting two dimensions of mental health in adulthood, namely, depression and
anxiety. The article closes with a discussion of findings that presents the results within
the broader context of RBA as a plausible framework for studies that use a quantitative
multivariate approach. First, the researchers begin with an overview of RBA, its
inception, and its widespread application in multiple...