The US National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) is a major innovation in violent death surveillance. The NVDRS links data for individual cases from multiple sources, and, where more than one death is associated with an incident, links records for all deaths that occurred in the incident. The NVDRS thus makes it possible to answer questions that are critical for the development of effective violence prevention strategies. What are the risk factors for multiple homicides? What proportion of people who commit homicide go on to kill themselves? How frequently are homicides associated with child maltreatment? Is the national level of violent death in schools increasing or decreasing? What proportion of homicides is associated with illicit drug deals? By having trained coders extract data from death certificates, medical examiner, coroner, and law enforcement records, the NVDRS provides the information sooner than vital statistics data, which are available only two years after a death. As the articles in this special issue illustrate, the combination of comprehensiveness and timeliness mean that NVDRS data are in high demand by violence prevention practitioners. As such, the NVDRS is the new gold standard for violent death surveillance systems elsewhere. Widespread dissemination about how the NVDRS works and its benefit for violence prevention will hopefully lead other countries that already have the elements of such a system in place to emulate the NVDRS.

In a global perspective, however, only a small …