Summary

The health impacts of policing and incarceration are well documented. On average, 1,000 people are killed by police in the US each year, with Black and Indigenous people being 2 to 3 times more likely to be killed by police than White people. Even in the absence of physical violence, stops by police — or the constant threat of stops by police — are associated with adverse mental health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, especially for Black communities.

Owing to the longstanding collective work of movement builders and advocates, the field of public health has begun to reckon with these issues. In 2018, the American Public Health Association (APHA) passed a policy statement naming law enforcement violence as a public health issue.

This year, against a backdrop of the global COVID-19 pandemic and uprisings for Black liberation, local governments have increasingly acknowledged that policing and racism are public health crises. These overlapping crises highlight the need for the types of upstream, structural solutions that the APHA policy statement names, including divesting from policing and investing in the social determinants of health. Such solutions would create a cascade of positive downstream outcomes in health, economic security, violence prevention, and more.

Health departments have a critical role to play in articulating a vision of a future where everyone is safe, healthy, and free – and specifying the ways we can shift our current resources, practices, policies, and systems to center health instead of punishment and achieve that vision.

This resource includes 5 recommendations and specific actions for health departments to take to help end police violence.