Table 2 Summary of study findings
Author, year | Country | Data reporting systems | Benefits/uses of reporting system | Challenges/limitations of reporting system |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Aghayev, 2008 | Switzerland | Virtopsy-repository of autopsy and radiological data | Digital and standardized documentation tool for forensic-radiological and pathological findings and comparison, epidemiological tool, archiving and distribution of data, continuing research and education, tracking tool for quality control, telemedicine, anonymous data passes to the central server | Tedious-require a large amount of time to enter data, language limited |
Canada, 2012 | Canada | Canadian Coroner and Medical Examiner Database National Coronial Database | Centralized source of data, closed cases, thorough analysis of data quality and integrity, standardization of cases, enhance information exchange for policy making | Under coverage (minimal), not completely reflective (not natural cases), may not link toxicology |
Kiuchi, 2013 | Japan | Institutional Database System located in each institute and containing personal information, and the Central Anonymous Database System located in the University Hospital Medical Information Network | Pathologists can retain, check or search personal databases, use by authorized users, proofreading system or quality and comprehensiveness of data, anonymization of data, hard copy of death certificate, real-time preservation, storage | Cases may be identified even after anonymization, informed consent, or ethical approval not required for data submission or analysis |
Colville-Ebeling, 2014 | Denmark | Database with authorized access only belonging to Department of Forensic Medicine | Security confidentiality maintained with authorized confidential (social security numbers used) access only, detailed information including autopsy reports, police reports, crime scene reports, and almost complete coverage of region, can be cross-referenced | No current validity methods, some information varies in a case-to-case basis |
Kipsaina, 2015 | Nigeria | Fatal injury surveillance system | First known fatal injury surveillance system in Nigeria to formulate injury prevention policies, created using available resources, standard data collection form by one data collector | Underreporting due to social circumstances, cultural influences, etc. Collection of data during a short period |
Levy, 2015 | USA | Varied systems: Medical Examiners and Coroners Alert System, ME/Coroner Information Sharing System, NVDRS, National Missing and Unidentified Persons System | MECAP-9000 product recalls or standard development; MECISP-tried to standardize data; NVDRS-improved research into preventable deaths; NamUs-resolved 9000 cases of missing or unidentified persons | Voluntary entry of information; manual or semi-automated; limited resources, no standardization of data collection, no communication or information sharing methods |
Lyndal, 2016 | Australia and New Zealand | National Coronial Database | Comprehensive coverage of cases within depth detail, reliable with high-quality data due to consistency with other data sources, a useful tool in death investigation and research on public health and safety-helped identify trends in specific death types-valuable to researchers and injury prevention practitioners/policy makers, identify hazards, inform the development of prevention strategies, assess their effectiveness, accurate estimation of mortality | Unavailability of data due to open cases, missing information, coding errors-underreporting of relevant cases, incomplete datasets, misclassification, inability to detect trends-erroneous reporting of decreasing trends due to small number of cases, selection bias or reporting bias (due to interest in closing the certain high-profile case) |
Ottaviani, 2017 | Italy | Creation of a web portal for a national data bank registry | Enhance epidemiological correlations with risk factors to provide further insight into SIDS | Requires consent from family |
Hofmeister, 2017 | Multiple countries including Mexico and Central America | Standard reporting form, a software application AM/PM Database, single or multi-user, in two languages | Assists in the identification of missing persons in armed conflicts and migration, one consolidated centralized system | Co-ordination of data exchange is difficult, needs training and technical staff because multiple countries involved, infrastructure and funding required, difficulty standardization of data |
Saar, 2017 | Australia and New Zealand | Internet database maintained by an IT support team nightly or weekly uploading of data | Standardization of data, more than 100 ethically approved research or monitoring projects as an ongoing data source, 215 publications, informed manufacturing changes, regulatory changes, awareness campaigns, suicide prevention initiatives, and coronial recommendations | Funding required for maintenance and support of multiple agencies (Allocation of court resources) |
Hargrove, 2018 | USA | Data is manually entered or imported into Epi Info V.7 with five data entries: death certificate data, coroner report data, autopsy report data, toxicology report data, and prescription drug report data | Enhanced surveillance data, data quality improvement, intervention and policy implementation, multi-stakeholder involvement | Underreporting of cases by hospital physicians was identified |
Fowler, 2018 | USA | State-based surveillance system. Data collected from individual information sources are entered into the NVDRS online data entry system with quality checks, training, and quality checks | Used to define public health priorities, develop and evaluate programs and policies, conduct research. Online platform simplified system operations and management, improved timeliness of data entry and reporting, enhanced flexibility | Not nationally representative, availability completeness and timeliness of data dependent on partnerships among state health departments, sharing and communication challenges, incomplete data, toxicology data not consistently collected, different classifications of deaths, different coding, protective factors not collected |
Dennis, 2018 | Australia | National Coronial Database funded by a governmental association | Study showed an opportunity to institute preventative measures (CPR training and defibrillators), outcomes improved possibly due to an increase in witnessed events, looked at preparticipation screening | Low number of cases, retrospective, not standardized data, missed cases |
Soto Martinez, 2019 | USA | A web-based platform, the Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) platform. Migration of the IID to a REDCap platform provided an opportunity to redesign the database to capture internal, external, and skeletal injuries with greater detail | Used to develop statistically sound diagnostic models, reliable, autopsy gold standard | Small number of cases, errors, complexity of observations, autopsy sample therefore not complete complement of injuries |
Dunstan, 2019 | Australia and New Zealand | National Coronial Information System | Data sharing with statistical and research data, identify mortality trends, formulate effective recommendations in the prevention of death and injury, contribution to health policy and prevention, access levels, ethics application process to obtain data | Reports only on closed cases, although nationally standardized information availability may vary, not all fatalities reported, no transcripts, photographic evidence or witness statements, non-fatal injury data, or information on the perpetrator |
Blair, 2016 | USA | NVDRS created in response to a 1999 Institute of Medicine report outlining the need for a national fatal intentional injury system, the first multistate system to provide detailed information on circumstances precipitating violent deaths, the first to link multiple source documents on violence-related deaths to enable researchers to understand each death more completely, and the first to link multiple deaths that are related to one another (e.g., multiple homicides, multiple suicides, and cases of homicide followed by the suicide of the suspected perpetrator) | Detailed circumstantial information regarding homicides and suicides enables research to be conducted to provide evidence basis for prevention programs. State health departments utilize information from the systems to identify areas of need, evaluate state policies and areas requiring intervention to produce targeted solutions or interventions. Improved elder abuse and neglect surveillance and targeted intervention programs | As of the publication of the article, the system was in place in 32 states and not national for complete surveillance |