Puerto rico violent deaths reporting system (prvdrs) - national violent death reporting system (nvdrs) CDC-RFA-CE21-2105PUERTO rico proposalabstractthe puerto rico institute of statistics (pris) is…

Puerto rico violent deaths reporting system (prvdrs) - national violent death reporting system (nvdrs) CDC-RFA-CE21-2105PUERTO rico proposalabstractthe puerto rico institute of statistics (pris) is puerto rico?s government institution thatadministers and supports the puerto rico violent death reporting system (prvdrs) since its inception in september of 2016. The prvdrs staff has established the protocols and procedures to collect nvdrs standard data elements on all violent deaths in puerto rico and submits this information in DE-identified form to CDC using a web-based data entry system. Data elements are collected from three sources: death certificates, coroner/medical examiner reports including toxicology reports, and law enforcement reports.one of the main reasons for implementing an epidemiological surveillance system of violent deaths in puerto rico is the high rates of homicides, particularly among young males and the use of firearms as the main mechanism of fatal injury; approximately 9 out of 10 homicides among males occur using a firearm. This application proposes to continue with the state wide violent death reporting system as recommended by the CDC?s nvdrs program under RFA?s option 1. The long term objective is to have a sustainable surveillance system for all violent deaths incidents including homicides, suicides, and unintentional violent deaths. The surveillance system is operational since 2016 and in subsequent years additional improvements have been made to the system in order to address project challenges and enhance project performance including the establishment of electronic data collection from the puerto rico department of health vital statistics office and the puerto rico police bureau?s (prpb) monthly homicide brief report, and improve firearms data quality and completeness. The institute of forensic sciences (IFS) is the sole institution that carries out forensic investigations including medical-legal, toxicology, and criminal laboratory analysis throughout all of puerto RI CO and is centralized in their main office in SAN juan. Similarly, the prpb is the principal law enforcement agency in charge of investigations involving all violent deaths. Finally, death certificates are registered at puerto rico?s demographic register which is a component unit of the department of health (DOH).the overarching goal is to maintain the quality of work such that prvdrs continue to meet nvdrs data quality standards and criteria for publication in nvdrs reports. The proposed objectives and activities aim for the optimization of the timeliness and completeness in case finding, case reporting as well as quality of data obtained from the three key sources of information: IFS, prpb and DOH. The prvdrs has established and renewed the memorandum of understanding with these institutions. In the five years of establishing the prvdrs, procedures and protocols have been developed to document all reported violent deaths incidents in the island by consolidating the information from the three main sources of information. The prvdrs work-plan focuses on the two main outcomes of the nvdrs program: 1. Continue with the strong working relationship developed over the last five years with the three key partners responsible for documenting violent deaths in puerto rico; 2. Disseminate data and reports to key partners and other key stakeholders (e.g. county governments, community organizations, universities, non-governmental organizations, etc.).