Agency Information Collection Activities; Proposals, Submissions, and Approvals
Federal Register: May 13, 2009 (Volume 74, Number 91)
Notices
Page 22557-22558
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
DOCID:fr13my09-66
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
60Day-09-0607
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 404-639-5960 or send comments to Maryam I. Daneshvar, CDC Acting Reports Clearance
Officer, 1600 Clifton Road, MS-D74, Atlanta, GA 30333 or send an e-mail to omb@cdc.gov.
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. Written comments should be received within 60 days of this notice.
Proposed Project
The National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) OMB 0920-0607--Revision--National Center for Injury Prevention and Control
(NCIPC), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Background and Brief Description
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 do not 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[acute]s Supplemental Homicide Report (SHRs) does collect basic information about the victim-suspect relationship and circumstances related to the homicide. SHRs do 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[acute]s National Incident Based Reporting
System (NIBRS) provides slightly more information than SHRs, but it covers less of the country than SHRs. NIBRS also only provides data regarding homicides. Also, the Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports does not use data that is less than two years old.
CDC therefore proposes to continue a state-based surveillance system for violent deaths that will provide more detailed and timely information. It taps into the case records held by medical examiners/ coroners, police, and crime labs. Data is collected centrally by each state in the system, stripped of identifiers, and then sent to the CDC.
Information is collected from these records about the characteristics of the victims and suspects, the circumstances of the deaths, and the weapons involved. States 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.
This revision is a request to allow 10 new state health departments to be added to the currently funded 17, if funding becomes available.
This may bring the total to 27 by the year 2012.
Page 22558
Violent deaths include all homicides, suicides, legal interventions, deaths from undetermined causes, and unintentional firearm deaths. The average state will experience approximately 1,000 such deaths each year.
There is no cost to respondents to participate other than their time.
Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
Number of
Average burden/
Respondents
Number of
responses/
response (in
Total burden respondents
respondent
hours)
(in hours)
State Health Departments....................
27
1,000
2.5
67,500
Dated: May 6, 2009.
Maryam I. Daneshvar,
Acting Reports Clearance Officer, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
FR Doc. E9-11128 Filed 5-12-09; 8:45 am
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