Violence is a serious public health problem in the United States and North Dakota (ND). Using North Dakota Department of Health Vital Records data, in 2020, North Dakota had 183 violent deaths (e.g., suicides, homicides, unintentional firearm deaths, legal intervention, and undetermined intent deaths). A significant portion of the violent deaths in North Dakota were suicides. In 2020, 140 lives were lost to suicide in North Dakota. It is the second leading cause of death for ages 10-24 and 25-34, and the eleventh leading cause of death for all North Dakotans in 2020. The increase in violent deaths in North Dakota, particularly suicides, emphasizes the need for the violent death reporting system.
The purpose of the North Dakota Violent Death Reporting System (NDVDRS) is to collect and disseminate accurate, timely, and comprehensive surveillance data on all violent deaths in North Dakota. This will be accomplished by using CDC guidelines, data collaborations, automated data extracts and imports and the CDC web-based data entry system. The data gathered in this program will be used to increase violence prevention efforts and reduce morbidity and mortality related to violence.
By the end of the first budget period, the NDVDRS program intends to achieve five key outcomes: 1) improved completeness, timeliness, and data quality of violent death surveillance data, 2) build stronger relationships with key partners, 3) increased access to NDVDRS data by the public and partners to inform their violence and injury prevention activities, 4) increased use of violent death surveillance data by partners to inform violence prevention programmatic and policy decisions, and 5) increased ability to describe the geographic distribution of violent deaths and understand the social determinants of health in relation to violent death-related health disparities. The purpose of these outcomes is to reduce violence by increasing the ability of violence prevention partners to inform, design, and implement effective violence prevention programs and policies. The overall goal is to decrease North Dakota’s violent death rate, thereby improving North Dakotan’s overall health and well-being.