Data Sources

The following data sources offer insight into suicides and mental health-related behaviors at the state and local levels. These data can support suicide evaluation and prevention efforts. Please note that various reports, fact sheets, and data dashboards that provide deep insight are accessible from the sites listed below.

• NC Violent Death Reporting System (VDRS): The North Carolina Violent Death Reporting System (NC-VDRS) is a public health, population-based surveillance system that contains detailed information on deaths that result from violence. It is operated by the North Carolina Division of Public Health’s Injury and Violence Prevention Branch to provide injury and violence prevention specialists and policymakers with timely information on the victims, suspects, relationships, circumstances, and weapons that are associated with every incident of violence that results in a fatality in North Carolina. The NC-VDRS is an incident-based, relational database that combines information from multiple sources, such as death certificates, medical examiner reports, and incident reports from law enforcement agencies on violent deaths to not only understand the “who, when, where, and how” but also “why” these deaths occurred. The NC-VDRS began collecting data in January 2004.
• 988 Dashboard: The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline offers 24/7 call, text, and chat access to trained crisis counselors who can help people experiencing suicidal, substance use, and or/mental health crises or any other kind of emotional distress. When an individual contacts (defined as a call, chat, or text) 988, the contact goes to the National Operator (Vibrant Emotional Health). The individual may choose a specialized hotline (Veteran, Spanish, LGBTQ+), which will route to a specialized call center. The 988 dashboard offers insight into how the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is being used in North Carolina. It provides useful information on contact volume, answer rates, speed of answer, age ranges, and reasons for calling, as well as call volume for specific populations.
• NCDHHS Injury and Violence Prevention Branch Suicide Data: Suicide and self-inflicted injury data, including Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) data and suicide fact sheets for specific populations in North Carolina.
• Child Behavioral Health Dashboard: The Child Behavioral Health Dashboard was developed to give service providers, policy makers and stakeholders the information they need to make more data-informed decisions about child behavioral health in North Carolina. The dashboard brings together data from multiple sources and includes key metrics on behavioral health diagnoses among children and adolescents, risk factors and utilization of Emergency Departments, mobile crisis services and Psychiatric Residential Treatment Facilities (PRTFs) for behavioral health care. The dashboard features several tools to break down the data to focus on specific populations, including geography, race, ethnicity, age and gender. This function gives dashboard users the ability to better identify disparities and trends in child behavioral health among individual population groups.
• NC Disease Event Tracking and Epidemiologic Collection Tool (NC DETECT): Use this dashboard to view ZIP, county, and state-level ED visit trends for select mental health-related conditions from 2017-present.
• NC Firearm Injury Surveillance Through Emergency Rooms (NC FASTER): Launched in 2020, the CDC’s Firearm Injury Surveillance Through Emergency Rooms (FASTER) program has provided funding to 10 states, including North Carolina. NC-FASTER is a collaboration between the NC Division of Public Health Injury and Violence Prevention Branch, UNC-Chapel Hill’s Injury Prevention Research Center, and the Carolina Center for Health Informatics in the Department of Emergency Medicine. It provides surveillance data in near-real time on emergency department visits for nonfatal firearm injuries.