 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Jeffrey D. Schulden, MD, Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Highway, MS K-60, Atlanta, GA 30307, 770.488.1529, jschulden@cdc.gov, Alex Crosby, MD; MPH, Centers for Disease Control, 1600 Clifton Rd, Atlanta, GA 30333, Lenora M. Olson, MA, Intermountain Injury Control Research Center, University of Utah School of Medicine, 615 Arapeen Dr, Suite 202, Salt Lake City, UT 84108, and Anna Davis, MPH, Intermountain Injury Control Research Center (IICRC), University of Utah, 615 Arapeen Drive, Suite 202, Salt Lake City, UT 84108.
Background: This presentation describes an evaluation by an external reviewer of the attributes of Utah’s National Violent Injury Statistics System (NVISS), an important foundation in the on-going efforts to develop a national program for violent death surveillance. Development: This surveillance system was developed to gather objective, on-going data for use in planning and evaluating programs and policies aimed at reducing violent deaths. Utah was one of eleven pilot sites nationwide which worked to develop uniform data elements, reporting protocols, and software for this reporting system. Implementation: The Utah NVISS pilot program utilizes four major data sources: death certificates, medical examiner reports, police supplemental homicide reports, and police incident reports. Evaluation: Surveillance data are used to monitor temporal trends in the frequency and nature of violent deaths and will contribute toward improving programs for the prevention and control of violent injury. An inherently complex surveillance system, NVISS has many strengths in its flexibility, overall acceptability, representativeness, and stability as a system. Recommendation for improvements: Through a continued working relationship with local law enforcement officials, the acceptability and participation within the law enforcement community will continue to improve. Timeliness could be improved by requesting information from data sources on a more regular basis, though in some instances the documents utilized are not finalized until several months after the incident. These recommendations are important for the on-going efforts to build a national violent death surveillance system.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Violence Prevention,
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.