Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention
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Review
The National Violent Death Reporting System: an exciting new tool for public health surveillance.
The US does not have a unified system for surveillance of violent deaths. This report describes the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), a system for collecting data on all violent deaths (homicides, suicides, accidental firearms deaths, deaths of undetermined intent, and deaths from legal intervention, excluding legal executions) in participating states. ⋯ Currently, 17 US states participate in the NVDRS; the intention is for the NVDRS to become a truly national system, representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the US territories. This report describes the history of the NVDRS, provides an overview of how the NVDRS functions, and describes future directions.
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To identify gender differences in violent deaths in terms of incidence, circumstances, and methods of death. ⋯ The incidence, circumstances, and methods of fatal violence differ greatly between females and males. These differences should be taken into account in the development of violence prevention efforts.
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After a 1996 firearm massacre in Tasmania in which 35 people died, Australian governments united to remove semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and rifles from civilian possession, as a key component of gun law reforms. ⋯ Australia's 1996 gun law reforms were followed by more than a decade free of fatal mass shootings, and accelerated declines in firearm deaths, particularly suicides. Total homicide rates followed the same pattern. Removing large numbers of rapid-firing firearms from civilians may be an effective way of reducing mass shootings, firearm homicides and firearm suicides.
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To calculate the prevalence of homicide followed by suicide (homicide/suicide) and provide contextual information on the incidents and demographic information about the individuals involved using data from a surveillance system that is uniquely equipped to study homicide/suicide. ⋯ The results support earlier research documenting the importance of intimate partner violence (IPV) and situational stressors on homicide/suicide. These results suggest that efforts to provide assistance to families in crisis and enhance the safety of IPV victims are needed to reduce risk for homicide/suicide. The consistency of the results from the NVDRS with those from past studies and the comprehensive information available in the NVDRS highlight the promise of this system for studying homicide/suicide incidents and for evaluating the impact of prevention policies and programs.