Police Brutality and Black Health: Setting the Agenda for Public Health Scholars

Abstract

We investigated links between police brutality and poor health outcomes among Blacks and identified five intersecting pathways: (1) fatal injuries that increase population-specific mortality rates; (2) adverse physiological responses that increase morbidity; (3) racist public reactions that cause stress; (4) arrests, incarcerations, and legal, medical, and funeral bills that cause financial strain; and (5) integrated oppressive structures that cause systematic disempowerment.Public health scholars should champion efforts to implement surveillance of police brutality and press funders to support research to understand the experiences of people faced with police brutality. We must ask whether our own research, teaching, and service are intentionally antiracist and challenge the institutions we work in to ask the same.To reduce racial health inequities, public health scholars must rigorously explore the relationship between police brutality and health, and advocate policies that address racist oppression.

Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race–ethnicity, and sex

“…Inequalities in risk are pronounced throughout the life course. This study reinforces calls to treat police violence as a public health issue (1,4). Racially unequal exposure to the risk of state violence has profound consequences for public health, democracy, and racial stratification (5,(7)(8)(9)11).…”

“…S5 and S7. The meaning of race, age, and gender for police violence emerges in the interactions between how officers perceive an individual's identity and the salience of these classifications for perceptions of criminality, belonging, and dangerousness (1,10,25,39). Future work should closely consider how place, race, gender, age, social class, and disability intersectionally structure exposure to violence (26).…”

“…criminal justice | public health | demography | social inequality V iolent encounters with the police have profound effects on health, neighborhoods, life chances, and politics (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9). Policing plays a key role in maintaining structural inequalities between people of color and white people in the United States (1,10). The killings of Oscar Grant, Michael Brown, Charleena Lyles, Stephon Clark, and Tamir Rice, among many others, and the protests that followed have brought sustained national attention to the racialized character of police violence against civilians (11).…”

Race-Related Traumatic Events Online and Mental Health Among Adolescents of Color

“…It may also make adolescents keenly aware that individuals in the video could easily have been them, and this may decrease participants' sense of control over what happens to them. Alang et al [33] note that research has specifically linked police brutality with poor health through physical injury and oppressive structures that cause systematic disempowerment. They argue that each episode has an emotional and physiological effect on individuals and communities.…”

Applying a critical race lens to relationship‐centered care in pregnancy and childbirth: An antidote to structural racism

“…32,33 Another example would be for a clinician to acknowledge and allow space during a 20-week anatomy scan to discuss why media coverage of a police killing of an unarmed Black man might cause apprehension and sadness for someone who is pregnant with a Black male fetus. 34,35…”