Implementation and evaluation of the Victorian Suicide Register

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The Victorian Suicide Register (VSR) is a state-based suicide surveillance system that contains detailed information on people who die by suicide and the circumstances surrounding their death. In this paper, we provide an overview of the VSR and then describe the evaluation, which used the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for surveillance system evaluation as a framework. METHODS: The evaluation drew on three data sources to assess whether the VSR: i) embodies the attributes of a good public health surveillance system; and ii) can be used to inform community-based suicide prevention efforts. RESULTS: There was a high level of acceptability and enthusiasm for h..