CDC launches new on-line tool for violence prevention information

Nov 18 2008

Who: The Centers for Disease Prevention and Control's Injury Center is launching a new web resource that provides violence prevention data from 16 funded states.

What: The new on-line tool, WISQARS(tm) NVDRS (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System National Violent Death Reporting System) provides data on violent deaths from the National Violent Death Reporting System so that it is easily accessible to researchers, public health practitioners, decision makers and the media. The new tool is a component of the currently available interactive WISQARS(tm) (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, pronounced "whiskers") tool which provides customized reports of injury-related data.

WISQARS(tm) NVDRS links information from multiple sources-death certificates, law enforcement reports, medical examiner and coroner reports and crime laboratories-to more fully understand the circumstances of violent deaths. It includes data on homicides, suicides, legal intervention deaths, unintentional firearm deaths, and deaths of undetermined intent.

Additionally, the new tool also provides data on important public health problems like intimate partner homicides, suicides among youth, and suicides among persons with military service and infant/child deaths. The system also links information across victims to better understand events where there may be more than one victim (e.g. a school or workplace shooting) or where homicides may be followed by suicides.

Users will be able to customize their search based on a variety of data fields including: demographics, victim/suspect relationships, method of injury, and precipitating circumstances.

When: WISQARS(tm) NVDRS will be available online November 18.

Where: You can access WISQARS(tm) NVDRS online, at http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/wisqars/.

How: Currently, CDC receives Congressional funding to support data collection from 16 states. The CDC Foundation and the Joyce Foundation provided support for the development of the WISQARS(tm) NVDRS module.

http://www.cdc.gov/