Descriptive title: Statewide SUID surveillance and categorization in Wisconsin and improvement of
death scene investigations.
Sudden and unexpected infant, child, and adolescent deaths are an indication of a
community’s health and should elicit a collective response, including efforts to understand the
circumstances and risk factors in order to prevent future deaths. Children’s Health Alliance of
Wisconsin (the Alliance) has been funded since 2012 for Sudden Unexpected Infant Death
(SUID) surveillance. During this time, our experience and findings from SUID have been used to
drive statewide safe sleep prevention, death scene investigation (DSI) trainings, and community
conversations about preventable deaths. The Alliance is enthusiastic to continue this important
work to further the understanding of risk factors among Wisconsin families with the long-term
outcomes of reducing SUID incidence and standardizing the investigation and reporting of these
deaths.
The purpose of the SUID Case Registry is to use Wisconsin’s existing death review systems
and strong partnerships to establish SUID incidence through complete and timely case
identification, review, categorization and data entry. Wisconsin will continue to utilize SUID
surveillance to inform local and state prevention and ultimately reduce sudden and unexpected
infant deaths in Wisconsin.
The Alliance will achieve the following outcomes by the end of the grant period: 1)
Increase local and state stakeholder access to complete high-quality statewide SUID
surveillance, 2) Decrease the percentage of missing and unknown priority variables for SUID
statewide, thus increasing the completeness and quality of SUID surveillance data, 3) Decrease
the percentage of cases that do not meet the timeliness standards for identification, review,
data entry, and quality assurance, 4) Increase the federal and state stakeholder understanding
of SUID incidence, including incidence by SUID category, 5) Maintain creation of Wisconsin’s
annual SUID report to inform local and state partners in their programmatic and policy
prevention efforts, 6) Increase support to local partners, including health departments and CDR
teams, to utilize and disseminate SUID data in their prevention efforts and in collaborations
with their stakeholders, and 7) increase the number of complete scene investigations and doll
re-enactments for SUID cases by equipping Wisconsin agencies with the necessary tools and
skills to conduct thorough investigations.
The Alliance is applying for Component A to perform statewide SUID surveillance and
categorization, and Component C to increase the availability of DSI trainings in areas with the
highest need. The attached letters of support and memorandums of understanding will
demonstrate the strong partnerships and capacity of the Alliance to conduct SUID surveillance
and manage annual statewide DSI trainings.