Violent Deaths: A new report from the National Violent Death Reporting System

Violent Deaths: A new report from the National Violent Death Reporting System

A new CDC report — Surveillance for Violent Deaths — National Violent Death Reporting System, 16 States, 2007 — summarizes data on 15,882 fatal incidents involving 16,319 deaths in 16 NVDRS states.

open here please: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss5904a1.htm

The majority (56.6%) of deaths were suicides, followed by homicides and deaths involving legal intervention (28.0%), deaths of undetermined intent (14.7%), and unintentional firearm deaths (0.7%).

NVDRS provides a comprehensive picture of violent death by combining once fragmented pieces of information from
death certificates,
coroner/medical examiner report,
toxicology results,
law enforcement reports, and
other reports related to each death.
Key findings include:

Suicide
Suicide rates were higher among American Indians/Alaska Natives and non-Hispanic whites and highest among persons aged 45-54 years, which marks a shift in the age group. Persons over the age of 80 have typically had the highest rates of suicide in the United States.

Problems related to mental health, jobs, finances, or relationships might have contributed to the high rates of suicide in this age group. Mental health and/or substance-abuse problems, relationship problems and losses, and recent crises were frequent precipi­tants for suicide. These factors have been documented in other studies as important risk factors for suicide.

Homicide
Homicide rates were more than three times higher among males than females. However, approximately one in three homicides of females is committed by a current or former spouse or partner. Among male homicide victims, approximately 5 percent are killed by intimate partners.

Non-Hispanic blacks accounted for the majority of homicide deaths and had the highest rate of homicide of any racial/ethnic group.
The findings of this report indicate that male homicide decedents were more likely to be killed following arguments or conflicts with persons other than an intimate partner or for other reasons (e.g., crime or drug-related) whereas more than half of homicides involving a female victim involved intimate-partner–related violence.

Special Topics
Suicides among former or current military personnel occurred primarily among males, non-Hispanic whites and persons over 45 years of age, and were largely precipitated by physical or mental health problems, intimate partner problems or a crisis in the past two weeks. Specifically, a physical health problem was listed more frequently as a life stressor for suicides of former or current military personnel as compared to the civilian population (37 percent versus 21 percent).

Data are used to inform prevention efforts by providing a comprehensive picture of the circumstances preceding deaths.

Learn More
► Data from the NVDRS states is available online through WISQARS™ (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System). http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/nvdrs.html

►Restricted Access Database for NVDRS is available to researchers upon request.
http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/NVDRS/RAD.html

►National Violent Death Reporting System: State profiles, frequently asked questions, and more.
http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/NVDRS/index.html

►CDC’s Violence Prevention Program
http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/