National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS)

NVDRS is an active, state-based surveillance system that collects information on homicides, suicides, deaths of undetermined intent (i.e., those for which available information is insufficient to enable a medical or legal authority to make a distinction among unintentional injury, self-harm, or assault), deaths from legal intervention (e.g., involving a person killed by an on-duty police officer), and unintentional firearm deaths. NVDRS was expanded to all 50 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico, in 2018.

NVDRS uses a multisource approach (i.e., death certificates, coroner/medical examiner reports, law enforcement records, and crime laboratory data) for analysis of violent deaths. Using information from all of these sources, data abstractors in each state assign a manner of death (i.e., suicide, homicide, unintentional firearm deaths, legal interventions, and undetermined deaths) to each case. NVDRS also collects the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision (ICD-10) code for underlying cause of death (UCOD), circumstances contributing to the death, and characteristics of the death, including victim-suspect relationship and victim toxicology results. The UCOD is categorized as suicide or homicide using standard definitions from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS).

For more information:

Lindsay Emer, PhD
Wisconsin Violent Death Reporting System Coordinator
608-720-8013