The Need for Improved Collaboration between Schools and Child Death Review Teams

Schools are essential public health partners for safeguarding students' health. Child Death Review (CDR) is one public health activity where collaboration with schools is integral for developing strategies to prevent child death but the degree of collaboration is unknown. This study assessed school participation in CDR and the prevalence of school problems in reviewed child death cases, comparing non-suicide and suicide-related deaths.

Using the National Fatality Review-Case Reporting System, we created a dataset of school-aged children (5 to 20 years) whose death was reviewed from 2005 to 2017 and used frequencies, proportions, and chi-squared statistics on selected measures.

Educational representatives infrequently participated in CDRs (24.9%). School records were rarely accessed for reviewed deaths (5.2%). Less than half (41.2%) of reviewed deaths had any school information and of these, 35.5% of children were indicated as having problems in school. Compared with non-suicide deaths, a larger proportion of suicide deaths had school representatives attend CDRs (28.4% vs 24.1%, P < .0001), and access to educational records (4.2% vs 9.2%, P < .0001).

Efforts are needed to address potential barriers to systems integration, including state policies and federal educational privacy laws.

School participation in CDRs is lacking for both suicide and non-suicide deaths.