[Federal Register Volume 68, Number 56 (Monday, March 24, 2003)]
[Notices]
[Pages 14242-14243]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 03-6871]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-03-53]


Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

    In compliance with the requirement of section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 for opportunity for public comment on 
proposed data collection projects, the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC) will publish periodic summaries of proposed projects. 
To request more information on the proposed projects or to obtain a 
copy of the data collection plans and instruments, call the CDC Reports 
Clearance Officer on (404) 498-1210.
    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the agency, including whether the information shall have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways 
to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, 
including through the use of automated collection techniques or other 
forms of information technology. Send comments to Seleda Perryman, CDC 
Assistant Reports Clearance Officer, 1600 Clifton Road, MS-D24, 
Atlanta, GA 30333. Written comments should be received within 60 days 
of this notice.
    Proposed Project: The National Violent Death Reporting System--
New--National Center for Injury prevention and Control (NCIPC), Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
    Violence is an important public health problem. In the United 
States, homicide and suicide are the second

[[Page 14243]]

and third leading causes of death, respectively, in the 1-34 year old 
age group. Unfortunately, public health agencies don't know much more 
about the problem than the numbers and the sex, race, and age of the 
victims, all information obtainable from the standard death 
certificate. Death certificates, however, carry no information about 
key facts necessary for prevention such as the relationship of the 
victim and suspect and the circumstances of the deaths, thereby making 
it impossible to discern anything but the gross contours of the 
problem. Furthermore, death certificates are typically available 20 
months after the completion of a single calendar year. Official 
publications of national violent death rates, e.g. those in Morbidity 
and Mortality Weekly Report, rarely use data that is less than two 
years old. Public health interventions aimed at a moving target last 
seen two years ago may well miss the mark.
    Local and Federal criminal justice agencies such as the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provide slightly more information about 
homicides, but they do not routinely collect standardized data about 
suicides, which are in fact much more common than homicides. The FBI's 
Supplemental Homicide Report system (SHRs) does collect basic 
information about the victim-suspect relationship and circumstances, 
like death certificates, it does not link violent deaths that are part 
of one incident such as homicide-suicides. It also is a voluntary 
system in which some 10-20 percent of police departments nationwide do 
not participate. The FBI's National Incident Based Reporting System 
(NIBRS) addresses some of these deficiencies, but it covers less of the 
country than SHRs, still includes only homicides, and collects only 
police information. Also, the Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports do 
not use data that is less than two years old.
    CDC therefore proposes to start a state-based surveillance systems 
for violent deaths that will provide more detailed and timely 
information. It will tap into the case records held by medical 
examiners/coroners, police, and crime labs. Data will be collected 
centrally by each state in the system, stripped of identifiers, and 
then sent to the CDC. Information will be collected from these records 
about the characteristics of the victims and suspects, the 
circumstances of the deaths, and the weapons involved. States will use 
standardized data elements and software designed by CDC. Ultimately, 
this information will guide states in designing programs that reduce 
multiple forms of violence.
    Neither victim families nor suspects are contacted to collect this 
information. It all comes from existing records and is collected by 
state health department staff or their subcontractors. Health 
departments incur an average of 2.5 hours per death in identifying the 
deaths from death certificates, contacting the police and medical 
examiners to get copies of or to view the relevant records, abstracting 
all the records, various data processing tasks, various administrative 
tasks, data utilization, training, communications, etc.
    The number of state health departments to be funded may be as high 
as 14 once FY03 cooperative agreements are awarded. Six states were 
funded thru FY02 cooperative agreements, and up to 8 more may be funded 
in 2003. NCIPC hopes to eventually fund all 50 states. Violent deaths 
include all homicides, suicides, legal interventions, deaths from 
undetermined causes, and unintentional firearm deaths. There are 50,000 
such deaths annually among U.S. residents, so the average state will 
experience approximately 1,000 such deaths each year.

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                                                                     Number of    Average burden/
                   Respondents                       Number of      responses/     response (in    Total burden
                                                    respondents     respondent        hours)        (in hours)
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State Health Departments........................              14           1,000          150/60          35,000
                                                 -----------------
    Total.......................................  ..............  ..............  ..............          35,000
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    Dated: March 13, 2003.
Thomas Bartenfeld,
Acting Associate Director for Policy, Planning and Evaluation, Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 03-6871 Filed 3-21-03; 8:45 am]
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