National Violent Death Reporting System, 2004

The National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS)
collects data on violent deaths, i.e., suicides, homicides, and legal
intervention, including terrorism-related incidents. The system also
includes some other types of deaths, namely deaths due to undetermined
intent and unintentional deaths due to firearms. One of the main
reasons for including these types of deaths is that there is overlap
in how these deaths are coded. For example, a particular poisoning
case may be classified as an undetermined death in one state, but in a
neighboring state, the same case may be coded as a suicide or an
unintentional poisoning. NVDRS is an incident-based system that
collects data from different data sources, including death
certificates, coroner and medical examiner records, police reports,
crime lab data, and child fatality review records. The system collects
data on a violent incident, the deaths belonging to that incident, the
injury mechanisms leading to death, and the alleged perpetrators
(suspects) involved in the violent incident. The relationship of the
victim to the suspect is also recorded, as are the relationships of
each person to the injury mechanisms included. State health
departments participating in NVDRS typically identify relevant violent
deaths as their death certificates are filed and then establish the
details of the cases from medical examiner, coroner, and law
enforcement records. Data collection is ongoing as the source
documents from the different data providers become available at
different times and intervals. The data represent the violent
incidents that occurred between January and December of that data year
as submitted by the participating states.