Second Look at Reported Racial-Ethnic Employment Differences in the Supported Employment Demonstration

Objective: The Supported Employment Demonstration (SED) trial, which studied the effects of individual placement and support (IPS) among individuals initially denied Social Security Administration disability benefits for mental illness, reported racial-ethnic differences in IPS' effect on employment. Because of high rates of attrition in the SED, this finding warranted further study. The current reanalysis used a subsample with a directly observed measure of competitive employment and less attrition to try to corroborate the reported racial-ethnic differences.

Methods: The authors compared self-reported employment (collected via telephone interviews) with observed employment (reported monthly by multidisciplinary teams) among a representative subsample (N=614) of the SED, stratified by race and ethnicity.

Results: The observed competitive employment outcomes showed no significant racial-ethnic differences among those assigned to participate in IPS.

Conclusions: Congruent with previous research, reanalysis based on more complete data and more rigorous outcome measurements implied an absence of racial-ethnic differences in IPS' effect on observed employment outcomes.