Advancing Surveillance of Violent Deaths Using the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS)

In 2020 there were 2,864 deaths meeting the NVDRS definition of a violent death (homicide, suicide, legal intervention, undetermined and unintentional firearm). In 2020 Illinois had the seventh highest number of violent deaths among all US states. From 2019 to 2020 Illinois experienced an increase of 272 violent deaths –a more than 10 percent increase. CDC funding through a three-year cooperative agreement (NU17CE010031-01-00) in September of 2019 enabled Illinois to collect and disseminate violent death data in a comprehensive and timely manner. In 2020, we collected data on 97% percent of violent deaths in Illinois. As a bona fide agent for IDPH, we propose to continue to develop and expand IVDRS as part of the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). With CDC funding, over the next five years we will focus on the following 5 strategies: 1. Use the CDC case definition to identify cases for abstraction 2. Update and implement our current plan to implement IVDRS across Illinois 3. Collect and abstract comprehensive data on violent deaths from DC, CME and LE reports using the CDC’s web-based data entry program and guidelines provided by CDC 4. Disseminate IVDRS data to stakeholders and the public 5. Explore innovative methods for linking data that could lead to improved timeliness and greater utilization of data for prevention efforts. With support from the CDC, IVDRS will continue to be a key resource for violence prevention, representing the entirety of Illinois counties and capturing all violent deaths in Illinois and expanding and deepening dissemination efforts to make data available to inform violence prevention planning at the state, county and local levels as well as contribute to NVDRS.