[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]
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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
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Number of Average burden/
Respondents Number of responses/ response (in Total burden
respondents respondent hours) (in hours)
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State Health Departments.................... 27 1,000 2.5 67,500
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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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