Articles Published by NIJ

As medical examiner and coroner offices nationwide face a severe shortage of forensic pathologists, New Mexico has pioneered the use of CT scans to reduce autopsy numbers and reduce costs.

NIJ has funded academic institutions and medical examiners’ offices to research the determination of intentional versus accidental trauma in infants and children.

The Miami-Dade medical examiner’s office has developed a quick method to screen fluids for hundreds of drugs simultaneously, improving workflow.

After a five-year fact-finding mission, a multi-agency working group has identified a host of problems in the U.S. medical examiner/coroner system, but solutions remain elusive.

Researchers have developed a tool that uses dental remains to accurately determine the age-at-death of the young and very young.

NIJ-supported research has enabled biomechanical experts to improve predictive models of head injuries in children, helping physicians and law enforcement to better distinguish between accidental injury and abuse.

NIJ-supported researchers developed a free web tool to help forensic investigators and others interested in bone identification.

Development of blowflies on a body is a standard forensic measure of time since death, but temperature variations can alter that development and mislead investigators.

Researchers believe a bacterium that causes food poisoning and other diseases may underlie some SIDS cases.

Criminal investigators use physiological changes and insect development to determine how long a body has been dead, but scientists are using the trillions of microbes involved in human decomposition to find more accurate postmortem intervals.

A new postmortem image database will be a resource for research in forensic anthropology, pathology, and radiology.

Researchers improve molecular autopsy accuracy by identifying more genetic variants that could lead to sudden unexplained deaths. These genetic clues may better inform criminal investigations and help prevent deaths in surviving family members.

Improving postmortem interval estimation with standardized and simplified protocols could significantly impact medicolegal death investigations by providing more accurate and reliable data for determining time since death.

NIJ-funded researchers are developing a probability model to predict child head injuries in falls.

The forensic power of DNA is clear, but biological evidence also contains RNA, another potential source of information. Because RNA decomposes quickly, its utility is considered limited. Could this decomposition provide information about a sample’s age?

Making imaging technologies available to forensic pathologists as common practice — although not without challenges — will help improve medicolegal death investigations in the United States.