Policing and Population Health: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Policy Points A growing body of research suggests that policing, as a form of state-sanctioned racial violence, operates as a social determinant of population health and racial or ethnic health disparities. A lack of compulsory, comprehensive data on interactions with police has greatly limited our ability to calculate the true prevalence and nature of police violence. While innovative unofficial data sources have been able to fill these data gaps, compulsory and comprehensive data reporting on interactions with police, as well as considerable investments in research on policing and health, are required to further our understanding of this public health issue.