Healthier People, Safer Communities

Violent death in Alaska
is preventable!

The purpose of the Alaska Violent Death Reporting System (AK VDRS) is to identify violence related deaths, collect data, review abstracted report elements pertaining to the fatal event, transmit de-identified data from AK VDRS to the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) and work with stakeholders to develop potential prevention strategies to reduce the number of violent deaths.

While Alaska has a relatively small population, every year approximately 250 individuals die as the result of homicides, suicides and other violent deaths. The need to collect and analyze the basic information about the characteristics and circumstances of these deaths from departmentalized records led the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services to establish the AK VDRS through a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funding agreement in 2003.  The AK VDRS is in its second five-year funding agreement to maintain and improve the state-based reporting system.

The primary AK VDRS data is derived from cooperation with the following key data sources:

For more information, please contact:

Scott Saxon, Public Health Specialist
AK VDRS Program Coordinator
3601 C Street, Suite 222
PO Box 240249
Anchorage, Ak 99524

907-269-8050
907-269-2041 (fax)