[Federal Register: November 16, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 221)]
[Notices]               
[Page 66785-66786]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr16no06-80]                         

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[30 Day-07-0607]

 
Agency Forms Undergoing Paperwork Reduction Act Review

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a 
list of information collection requests under review by the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) in compliance with the Paperwork Reduction 
Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). To request a copy of these requests, call 
the CDC Reports Clearance Officer at (404) 639-5960 or send an e-mail 
to omb@cdc.gov. Send written comments to CDC Desk Officer, Office of 
Management and Budget, Washington, DC or by fax to (202) 395-6974. 
Written comments should be received within 30 days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    The National Violent Death Reporting System--extension--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's 
Supplemental Homicide Report system (SHRs) does collect basic 
information about the victim-suspect relationship and circumstances, 
like death certificates, it does 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's National Incident Based Reporting System 
(NIBRS) addresses some of these deficiencies, but it covers less of the 
country than SHRs, still includes only homicides, and collects only 
police information. Also, the Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports do 
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 2.0 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.
    Violent deaths include all homicides, suicides, legal 
interventions, deaths from undetermined causes, and unintentional 
firearm deaths. There are 50,000 such deaths annually among U.S. 
residents, so the average state will experience approximately 1,000 
such deaths each year.
    There are no costs to the respondents other than their time. The 
total estimated annualized burden hours are 55,000.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                                     Number of    Average burden/
              Respondents                       Task name            Number of      responses/      response (in
                                                                    respondents     respondent        hours)
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State Health Departments..............  Case Abstraction........              20           1,000               2

[[Page 66786]]


                                        Record Retrieval........              20           1,000             0.5
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    Dated: November 9, 2006.
Joan F. Karr,
Acting Reports Clearance Officer, Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention.
 [FR Doc. E6-19374 Filed 11-15-06; 8:45 am]

BILLING CODE 4163-18-P