More than 55% of deaths from police violence in the USA from 1980-2018 were misclassified or unreported in official vital statistics reports according to a new study in The Lancet. The highest rate of deaths from police violence occurred for Black Americans, who were estimated to be 3.5 times more likely to experience fatal police violence than white Americans.
Co-first author Eve Wool discusses key findings from the study, and the urgency of police violence as a public health issue.
Transcription:
In IHME’s recent paper on fatal police violence by race, ethnicity and state in the United States, we found that Black Americans were 3.5 times more likely to be killed by police than white Americans. Indigenous and Hispanic Americans were almost twice as likely to be killed by the police than white Americans. Police violence against Black people was higher every year from 1980-2018 than it was for white people in the United States. Since 1980, this racial disparity has remained largely unchanged. All of these statistics really outline the systemic racism that is driving police violence in the US. Police violence is a public health issue. Violence is a public health issue. And systemic racism is a public health issue.
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is an independent population health research center at UW School of Medicine, part of the University of Washington, that provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world’s most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them. IHME makes this information freely available so that policymakers have the evidence they need to make informed decisions about how to allocate resources to best improve population health. Learn more about IHME: »
source