Michigan Child Death Review Program

The Michigan Child Death Review (CDR) Program builds and supports multidisciplinary teams in all 83 counties. These teams, totaling nearly 1,200 persons, meet regularly to review all of the circumstances surrounding the death of a child. The program was started in 1995 with the help of a Children's Justice Act two-year grant of $225,000 to the Michigan Public Health Institute (MPHI). The results of the pilot led to revisions to the Michigan Child Protection Act, Section 7b (PA 167 of 1997). This enabled CDR, encouraged expansion to all counties, mandated a Child Death State Advisory Committee and required an annual report on child deaths. By 1999, all of Michigan's counties had organized teams to review deaths. Most other states' CDR teams were established only to review child abuse deaths. Michigan opted for a broader process that would encourage reviews of all preventable deaths to children under age 19, using a public health model.

The purpose of CDR is to use the findings from the reviews to improve agency systems and to take action to prevent other deaths.

In 2002, close to 900 deaths were reviewed, which represents almost half of all child deaths, ages 0-18, in the state. Since 1995, teams have reviewed almost 4,000 deaths. Up through 2001, teams recommended 1,149 strategies to prevent deaths and took action to implement at least 596 of these.