Content area
Full Text
Police violence has increasingly been recognized as a public health concern in the United States, and accumulating evidence has shown police violence exposure to be linked to a broad range of health and mental health outcomes. These associations appear to extend beyond the typical associations between violence and mental health, and to be independent of the effects of co-occurring forms of trauma and violence exposure. However, there is no existing theoretical framework within which we may understand the unique contributions of police violence to mental health and illness.
This article aims to identify potential factors that may distinguish police violence from other forms of violence and trauma exposure, and to explore the possibility that this unique combination of factors distinguishes police violence from related risk exposures. We identify 8 factors that may alter this relationship, including those that increase the likelihood of overall exposure, increase the psychological impact of police violence, and impede the possibility of coping or recovery from such exposures.
On the basis of these factors, we propose a theoretical framework for the further study of police violence from a public mental health perspective. (Am J Public Health. 2020;1 10:1704-1710. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305874)
A new public narrative around the prevalence and effects of police violence has emerged over the past several years in the United States, accompanied recently by a dramatic shift in public opinion following the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain, and the related national civil uprising and protests. Although Black, Latinx, Native American, and sexual and gender minority communities have long perceived a culture of inequitable treatment, it is only with the widespread adaptation of smartphone technology and real-time dissemination of footage through social media that this has become part of the national consciousness.1 Media attention has primarily focused on individual incidents of police killings rather than on broader populationlevel health effects and implications. Although death is certainly the most severe health outcome, it is just as certainly not the most common. The mental health effects of police violence may be less visible yet much more pervasive and, potentially, more impactful when considered across an entire community or population.
In this article, we place the emerging literature on the mental health correlates of police violence within the broader...