Drowning-related data is woefully inadequate. However, Meow Meow Foundation believes that facts matter. Personal anecdotes often muddy the realities of drowning. They do not solve critical, life-threatening issues. Therefore, MMF uses these databases to inform its initiatives. MMF will continue to work with these agencies to improve aggregation, evaluation and distribution.

WISQARS™

CDC’s WISQARS™ (Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System) is an interactive, online database that provides fatal and nonfatal injury, violent death and cost of injury data from a variety of trusted sources. Researchers, the media, public health professionals, and the public can use WISQARS™ data to learn more about the public health and economic burden associated with unintentional and violence-related injury in the United States.

WONDER

Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER) is an easy-to-use internet system that makes the information resources of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) available to public health professionals and the public at large. WONDER furthers CDC's mission of health promotion and disease prevention by speeding and simplifying access to public health information for state and local health departments, the Public Health Service and the academic public health community.

NEISS

For more than 45 years, the Consumer Product Safety Council has operated a statistically valid injury surveillance and follow-back system known as the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS). The primary purpose of NEISS is to collect data on consumer product-related injuries occurring in the United States. Since the year 2000, when CPSC initiated an expansion of the system to collect data on all injuries, NEISS has become an important public health research tool, not just for CPSC, but also for researchers and consumers throughout the United States and around the world.

CA DDS

California’s Department of Developmental Disabilities (DDS) oversees the coordination and delivery of services to more than 330,000 individuals who have cerebral palsy, intellectual and motor disabilities (including those caused by non-fatal drowning), Down syndrome, autism, epilepsy and related conditions through a network of 21 regional centers and state-operated facilities. In California, drowning is a leading cause of injury-related deaths among children under the age of five. Each year, non-fatal drowning incidents result in life-long disabilities. DDS continues to raise awareness on this issue and remind parents and caregivers that drowning is preventable.

EpiCENTER

EpiCenter was designed by the Safe and Active Communities Branch and constructed by the Information Technology Services Division of the California Department of Public Health. The platform is the most versatile and comprehensive source of California injury data and includes all types of injuries that result in death, hospitalization or emergency department visits.

UNITED STATES LIFESAVING ASSOCIATION

The United States Lifesaving Association is America's nonprofit professional association of beach lifeguards and open water rescuers. The USLA works to reduce the incidence of death and injury in the aquatic environment through public education, national lifeguard standards, training programs, promotion of high levels of lifeguard readiness, and other means. The association annually polls its chapters for the number of rescues, drownings, and other statistical information reported by lifeguard agencies. This is a list comprised only of the most major agencies.

NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL

The nation's leading safety advocate for more than 100 years, the National Safety Council (NSC) is a nonprofit organization with the mission of eliminating preventable deaths at work, in homes and communities and on the road through leadership, research, education and advocacy. Injury Facts is designed as a tool for everyone – the safety professional, writer or journalist, public speaker, government worker, educator, business owner, parent. The data provides reliable information to help communicate trends of the past, and the ones we see right now, to anticipate the future and change it for the better.

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