Harvard study says police-related deaths are a public health concern
The study from the Harvard School of Public Health says the deaths should be reported and published by the CDC.
In the United States, there is no official count of annual police-related deaths. But recording and publishing the data can be done and could help prevent future deaths, according to a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health.
The authors of the study, published on Tuesday in Public Library of Science Medicine, proposed that the data related to people killed by members of law enforcement — as well as the members of law enforcement killed in the line of duty — be treated as a “notifiable condition,’’ not just as criminal data, reported to the Centers for Disease Control by public health and medical professionals on a weekly basis just like deaths from other conditions.
“It is time to bring a public health perspective to this longstanding and terrible problem, from a standpoint that emphasizes prevention and health equity, as opposed to treating these data as if they solely belong to the police and are a matter of criminal justice only,’’ Nancy Krieger, professor of social epidemiology and lead author of the study, said in a statement.
The study notes that the British newspaper The Guardian has already been reporting the number of people killed by police in the United States:
It is stunning that we in the US must turn to a UK newspaper website for timely and detailed reporting on deaths due to police violence. It also is unnecessary. A policy mechanism already exists. It is time that public health agencies exercise their ability to report to the public, in a timely manner, vital data on law-enforcement–related mortality that are critical to the well-being of communities and the body politic itself.
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