Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #115093

Bretta Jacquemin, MPH, Center for Health Statistics, New Jersey Dept of Health and Senior Services, PO Box 360, Trenton, NJ 08625-0360, 609-984-6702, Bretta.Jacquemin@doh.state.nj.us, Catherine Klinger, MPH, Center for Health Statistics, New Jersey Dept. of Health and Senior Services, PO Box 360, Trenton, NJ 08625-0360, and Katherine Hempstead, PhD, Center for Health Statistics, New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services, PO Box 360, H/A Building, Rm. 405, Trenton, NJ 08625.

Background: The New Jersey Violent Death Reporting System (NJVDRS), part of the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), is a surveillance system for collecting, linking, and analyzing violent fatalities by combining health department data with data from law enforcement sources. By using the incident as the unit of analysis, NVDRS is well suited to the identification of multi-person incidents such as murder-suicides. Methods: The Center for Health Statistics (CHS) examined characteristics of murder-suicide incidents in New Jersey. Data on murder-suicides occurring in 2003 identified using LexisNexis™ and InfoTrac™ searches were compared with results from incidents identified using NJVDRS during the first data year of the database. Results: The LexisNexis and InfoTrac media searches yielded 5 incidents and 14 deaths in 2003. NJVDRS data for 2003 found 12 murder-suicide incidents and 29 deaths. These findings suggest that murder-suicide in New Jersey has been undermeasured in the media by a considerable amount. NJVDRS also has the ability to capture “near” murder-suicides, incidents where either the homicide or the suicide was unsuccessful. In 2003, 7 such incidents were identified using NJVDRS. Only two such incidents were found using LexisNexis or InfoTrac. Conclusions: NJVDRS allows for more accurate identification of multiple victim violent fatalities. NJVDRS identified more than twice as many murder-suicide incidents as media sources. Additionally, NJVDRS captures near murder-suicides with at least one fatality. These findings suggest that NJVDRS will be a valuable tool in assessing the true public health burden of murder-suicide incidents.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the unique advantages of NVDRS over standard mortality datasets
• List risk factors and circumstances observed in murder-suicide incidents in New Jersey
• For NVDRS states, recognize which data sources from their respective states are most useful for case ascertainment of multiple victim homicides or cases of murder-suicide

Keywords: Data/Surveillance, Homicide

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.