A fatal review: Exploring how children’s deaths are reported in the United States

Abstract Child death reports are the leading data source used to orchestrate child fatality prevention policy. Therefore, the way in which child death is reported is crucial to how we sustain life. We sought to assess the systematic ways in which death is reported for children. Based on a qualitative analysis of medico-legal investigation reports collected from a medical examiner’s office and a coroner’s office, we examined several indicators of data completeness, quality, site organizational structure, and consistency. We found stark differences between the two sites, as well as issues regarding death diagnosis certainty, and a general lack in consistency in the reports’ content, as well as procedures performed post-mortem. We conclude that there are some flaws in our death reporting system for child populations, which have the potential to hinder reliability and accuracy of these death reports, as well as thwart their overall usefulness in prevention policies.