NPDS offers a variety of analytical data products customized to fit our clients’ needs. These products fall under 5 major categories:

Individual
Case Listings

Individual Case Listings are our most popular products. Clients are able to customize the variables used to build the data query to identify the cases of interest. Specific variables may be selected based on a number of specific data parameters related but not limited to: age, weight, gender, medical outcome, or variables providing information about the substance involved. A comprehensive list of variables and definitions can be found in the NPDS Elements table below. Individual Case Listings may be delivered for retrospective or prospective data on a one-time, quarterly, monthly, or other pre-determined interval.

Custom
Tables

Tables that are published in the NPDS Annual Report can be customized by timeframe, age, and America's Poison Centers generic code (i.e., code that represents a broad group of related products used to identify the substance involved). Alternatively, a client may choose to submit a table shell of their own design that America's Poison Centers would then populate with NPDS data that meet the client’s defined parameters of interest.

Fatality Abstracts

Structured, de-identified abstracts of fatalities reported to poison centers. Examples appear in Appendix C of NPDS Annual Reports. Please note that fatality abstracts for a particular year will not be available until the NPDS Annual Report for that year of interest has been published. E.g. Fatality abstracts for 2023 cases will not be available until the 2023 NPDS Annual Report is released in 2024.

Surveillance Definitions

Surveillance can be used as a means of early identification of hazardous exposures to particular products or potential public health threats. There are multiple types of surveillance definitions that can be customized to fit our clients’ specific data needs. Surveillance definitions are developed based on either:

• Cases – detect cases of interest that meet user-defined criteria (e.g. clinical effects/outcomes) for detecting anomalies.

• Case Volume – detect toxic phenomena by comparing case volume abnormalities to user-defined historical baselines.

The NPDS surveillance system generates an alert that is triggered based on the exact parameters specified in the surveillance definition. Surveillance reports may be delivered quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily or at any other pre-determined interval. Federal entities, such as the CDC, use the NPDS surveillance system to identify emerging issues of public health concern.

Case
Narratives

Case narratives are de-identified free text notes that may provide additional details regarding the case. This information is entered by the regional poison center. Case narratives are not contained within NPDS. America's Poison Centers requests case narratives from association member poison centers that choose to comply at their own discretion.