NCJ Number
176945
Journal
American Journal of Preventive Medicine Volume: 15 Issue: 3S Dated: October 1998 Pages: 101-108
Date Published
1998
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Since firearm-related injuries rank second only to motor vehicle-related injuries as a cause of injury death in Wisconsin, an evaluation of Wisconsin's Firearm-Related Injury Surveillance System was conducted.
Abstract
Attributes of the system, a passive surveillance system linking administrative data from existing State-funded inpatient hospitalization and mortality databases, were assessed in terms of simplicity, flexibility, acceptability, sensitivity, predictive value positive, representativeness, timeliness, resources, and data quality. Evaluation findings revealed that the use of the two existing State databases simplified data acquisition and linkage. Hospital discharge and vital record databases, however, were not sufficiently flexible to collect perpetrator and circumstance information. Acceptability of the system was high because of State-mandated reporting to the databases. For firearm injuries requiring hospitalization, the system's predictive value positive was 97 percent. The system was considered timely because annual data from hospital discharge and vital record systems could be obtained, linked, analyzed, and reporting by September of the subsequent year. In addition, the system was sustainable largely because existing software was used for annual evaluations. The authors note additional information is available on circumstances, perpetrators, and weapons involved are available but more resources are needed to integrate this information with existing data. 6 references, 5 tables, and 1 figure