[Federal Register Volume 68, Number 181 (Thursday, September 18, 2003)]
[Notices]
[Pages 54732-54733]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 03-23826]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[30Day-70-03]


Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a 
list of information collection requests under review by the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) in compliance with the Paperwork Reduction 
Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). To request a copy of these requests, call 
the CDC Reports Clearance Officer at (404) 498-1210. Send written 
comments to CDC, Desk Officer, Human Resources and Housing Branch, New 
Executive Office Building, Room 10235, Washington, DC 20503 or by fax 
to (202) 395-6974. Written comments should be received within 30 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).

[[Page 54733]]

    Violence is an important public health problem. In the United 
States, homicide and suicide are the second 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 10 once FY03 cooperative agreements are awarded. Six states were 
funded thru FY02 cooperative agreements, and up to 4 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. The total number 
of burden hours are 25,000, based on 10 states participating.

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                                                                                      No. of      Average burden/
                           Respondents                               Number of      responses/     response (in
                                                                    respondents     respondent        hours)
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State Health Departments (10)--Completion of case abstraction...           1,000               1               2
State Health Departments (10)--Retrieving and refiling records..           1,000               1           30/60
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    Dated: September 12, 2003.
Nancy E. Cheal,
Acting Associate Director for Policy, Planning and Evaluation, , 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 03-23826 Filed 9-17-03; 8:45 am]
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