These graphics, published by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ)—in partnership with its Forensic Technology Center of Excellence (FTCOE) at RTI International and the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—illustrate elements that should be considered and reported with suspected substance-related drowning, falls, firearms, and SUID cases.
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ)—in partnership with its Forensic Technology Center of Excellence (FTCOE) at RTI International and the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—published these graphics to show the elements that should be considered and reported with suspected substance related, drowning, falls, firearms, and SUID cases. The NIJ, FTCOE, and CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics convened a virtual Medicolegal Death Investigation Data Exchange Working Group (MDI-Data-WG) beginning in September 2020 to document the types of data commonly exchanged with public health and public safety partners and determine collective usage points for medicolegal death investigations (MDIs); provide recommendations on how to improve the naming process for emerging drugs; guide the drug mapping/classification process; and recommend needed enhancements to the operation of exchanging forensic data with other organizations. These case specific data elements are meant to be used in addition to the commonly collected data elements that should be collected and recorded for every case. For example, overarching data elements such as location, decedent name, and age are not reiterated in these case specific data element clusters. The intent of this is to highlight several specific case types and the set of data elements that need to be collected when those types of cases are suspected by a MEC. The lists are not necessarily specific to investigating manner of death which requires additional data to be collected and recorded, and in certain situation multiple sets of these elements may need to be collected (such as a case that is suspected to be either substance related and/or drowning related). Ensuring that all frequently collected data elements as well as case specific data elements are collected help to better inform investigative and public health/safety practices.