Law enforcement and the National Violent Death Reporting System: a partnership in the making.

T he above quote provides a backdrop for the importance to law enforcement of comprehensive and integrated databases, such as the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). The NVDRS can aid law enforcement’s efforts to design community level interventions, thereby ultimately reducing crime. Similarly the NVDRS can aid in the development and implementation of strategies to prevent injury and protect and improve health. Collaboration with law enforcement provides public health agencies with increased access to violent death data otherwise unavailable to them. In turn, through collaboration with public health agencies, law enforcement can obtain a more comprehensive view of violent deaths. Case information provided by coroners and medical examiners, death certificates, and child fatality review teams can supplement data routinely collected by law enforcement, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)’s Supplementary Homicide Reports, trace information of firearms gathered by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), crime lab case files, state and local police reports, and other investigative records. States that participate in the NVDRS, however, currently collect information from four primary data sources: death certificates, medical examiner/coroner records, law enforcement record, and crime laboratory records. Over time, additional sources that are particularly useful for specific kinds of death may be added to the system. A comprehensive view of data from all sources is necessary to fully understand violent deaths in the US. This commentary contains a brief description of the benefits of collaboration between law enforcement and public health in the implementation and utilization of the NVDRS. It contains examples of collaborative efforts between law enforcement and public health in the NVDRS states and descriptions of some of the challenges to the NVDRS and solutions that have been found.