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Using NVDRS data for suicide prevention: promising practices in seven states

¹ Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Virginia Department of Health, Richmond, VA, USA
² National Violent Injury Statistics System, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
³ Injury, Suicide and Violence Prevention, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Denver, CO, USA
⁴ Office of Injury Surveillance and Prevention, New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, Trenton, NJ, USA
⁵ Division of Public Health, Section of Injury Prevention and EMS, Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Anchorage, AK, USA
⁶ Injury and Violence Prevention, Oregon Department of Human Services, Portland, OR, USA
⁷ Center for Preventive Health Services, Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Baltimore, MD, USA
⁸ Division of Injury and Violence Prevention, South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, Columbia, SC, USA

Correspondence to:
Dr V Powell
Virginia Department of Health, 400 East Jackson Street, Richmond, VA 23219, USA; virginia.powell{at}vdh.virginia.gov

ABSTRACT
Objectives: This article describes how seven states participating in a new public health surveillance system for violent death in the US, the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), have used data to support local suicide prevention activities.

Setting: The NVDRS is unique in that it augments death certificate data with event and circumstance information from death investigation reports filed by coroners, medical examiners, and law enforcement. These data illuminate why the victim ended his or her life, fatal injury patterns, and toxicological findings at death.

Results: Current suicide prevention efforts using these data fall into three categories: describing the problem of suicide and identifying opportunities for intervention; collaborating on statewide suicide prevention plans; and forming new partnerships for targeted prevention initiatives. Taken together, these three areas show early promise for state suicide prevention efforts.

Conclusions: In each of the states, NVDRS data analyses are being shared with injury prevention colleagues, suicide prevention planning groups and policymakers, and adapted to respond to unique state and local suicide problems. A powerful surveillance tool, the NVDRS is bringing new clarity and direction to these state-based efforts. The NVDRS can serve as a model for other countries looking to establish timely suicide surveillance systems and data driven prevention strategies.

Abbreviations: CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; NCHS, National Center for Health Statistics; NVDRS, National Violent Death Reporting System; SUPRE, Suicide Prevention; WHO, World Health Organization

This article has been cited by other articles:

				H B Weiss, M I Gutierrez, J Harrison, and R Matzopoulos The US National Violent Death Reporting System: domestic and international lessons for violence injury surveillance Inj. Prev., December 1, 2006; 12(suppl_2): ii58 - ii62. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]