The North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s Office of Violence Prevention has released new factsheets for all 100 counties in the state. These documents consolidate health and safety data to support a public health approach to violence prevention across North Carolina.
“The first step in preventing violence is to understand it,” stated OVP Director Siarra Scott. “By pulling together previously siloed data, these factsheets offer local organizations a more comprehensive insight into how violence is impacting communities from both a public health and criminal justice lens. This data can help violence prevention professionals identify the most effective programs and allocate resources intentionally.”
The profiles incorporate data from several sources, including:
– Violent crime rates based on National Incident Reporting System (NIBRS) data compiled by the State Bureau of Investigation and uploaded to the Criminal Justice Analysis Center’s Justice Data Portal.
– Violent death demographics and circumstances preceding death, based on the Violent Death Recording System managed by the NC Injury and Violence Prevention Branch of the state Department of Public Health.
– Emergency department visits resulting from firearm-related injuries, based on data collected through the North Carolina Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiologic Collection Tool (NC DETECT).
The Office of Violence Prevention supports a public health approach to reducing violence and firearm misuse across North Carolina. It works in partnership with the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services as a centralized resource for organizations aiming to mitigate violence’s impact on communities within the state.
