Associations Between Experiences of Police Contact and Discrimination by the Police and Courts and Health Outcomes in a Representative Sample of Adults in New York City
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Report Publish Date: November 22, 2021
This journal article describes a study looking at whether interacting with the police affected the health of New York City residents.
Primary Takeaways
The researchers found that about 29% of New Yorkers surveyed had been stopped by the police, 8.7% had been abused by the police, and 14.6% had been discriminated against by police or courts. Having ever been stopped or abused by the police increased New Yorkers’ likelihood of having recently been physically ill. Having ever been stopped, abused, or discriminated against by the police increased New Yorkers’ likelihood of reporting poor mental health in the last 30 days. The association between police contact and poor physical or mental health was highest among Black New Yorkers.
Overview and Objectives
Past research has found that interacting with the police affects mental and physical and mental health, especially among Black Americans. The authors wanted to examine this association in New York City.
Hypothesis or Approach
The authors expected to find that being stopped, abused, or discriminated against by the police would be positively associated with poor health. They also expected to find that people of different races and ethnicities and people of different ages experienced police contact differently. The researchers used data from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s 2017 Social Determinants of Health Survey.
How This Influences Change
“It is urgent that public health surveillance systems include data on the impact of exposure to police contact and discrimination and to the carceral system on health outcomes,” the authors write. “This would allow researchers to highlight the critical evidence to inform and reform policies that disproportionately impact individuals and communities of color.”
Grant Details
Amount awarded:
$500,000
Awarded on: 03/17/2021
Timeframe: 2021-2022
Grant number: 78467
Location: New York, NY
About Grantee:
Research: Go Deeper
Communities marginalized because of racism, heterosexism, and other systems of oppression have a history of being aggressively policed, and in those contexts, researchers have observed associations between a range of negative experiences with police and poor physical, mental, and behavioral health outcomes. However, past studies have been limited in that experiences of police contacts were aggregated at the neighborhood level and, if police contacts were self-reported, the sample was not representative. To address these limitations, we employed NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene 2017 Social Determinants of Health Survey (n = 2335) data to examine the associations of self-reported police contacts and discrimination by police and the courts with measures of physical (poor physical health), mental (poor mental health, serious psychological distress), and behavioral health (binge drinking).
Residents marginalized because of racial, ethnic, and sexual minority status were more likely to be stopped, searched, or questioned by the police; threatened or abused by the police; and discriminated against by the police or in the courts; those experiences were associated with poor physical, mental, and behavioral health outcomes. The associations between experiences with police and poor health outcomes were strongest among Black residents and residents aged 25–44. Our findings suggest that the health of NYC residents who have had exposure to police and experienced discrimination by the police and courts is poorer than those who have not, and build on a growing body of evidence that aggressive policing practices have implications for public health.
J Urban Health, November 22, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-021-00583-6
Research Team
This study and article were conducted and created by the following people.
- Azure Thompson
- María Baquero
- Devin English
- Michele Calvo
- Simone Martin-Howard
- Tawandra Rowell-Cunsolo
- Marné Garretson
- Diksha Brahmbhatt
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