Background

The burden of fatal police violence is an urgent public health crisis in the USA. Mounting evidence shows that deaths at the hands of the police disproportionately impact people of certain races and ethnicities, pointing to systemic racism in policing. Recent high-profile killings by police in the USA have prompted calls for more extensive and public data reporting on police violence. This study examines the presence and extent of under-reporting of police violence in US Government-run vital registration data, offers a method for correcting under-reporting in these datasets, and presents revised estimates of deaths due to police violence in the USA.

Methods

We compared data from the USA National Vital Statistics System (NVSS) to three non-governmental, open-source databases on police violence: Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, and The Counted. We extracted and standardised the age, sex, US state of death registration, year of death, and race and ethnicity (non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic of other races, and Hispanic of any race) of each decedent for all data sources and used a network meta-regression to quantify the rate of under-reporting within the NVSS. Using these rates to inform correction factors, we provide adjusted estimates of deaths due to police violence for all states, ages, sexes, and racial and ethnic groups from 1980 to 2019 across the USA.

Findings

Across all races and states in the USA, we estimate 30 800 deaths (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 30 300–31 300) from police violence between 1980 and 2018; this represents 17 100 more deaths (16 600–17 600) than reported by the NVSS. Over this time period, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was highest in non-Hispanic Black people (0·69 [95% UI 0·67–0·71] per 100 000), followed by Hispanic people of any race (0·35 [0·34–0·36]), non-Hispanic White people (0·20 [0·19–0·20]), and non-Hispanic people of other races (0·15 [0·14– 0·16]). This variation is further affected by the decedent's sex and shows large discrepancies between states. Between 1980 and 2018, the NVSS did not report 55·5% (54·8–56·2) of all deaths attributable to police violence. When aggregating all races, the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence was 0·25 (0·24–0·26) per 100 000 in the 1980s and 0·34 (0·34–0·35) per 100 000 in the 2010s, an increase of 38·4% (32·4–45·1) over the period of study.

Interpretation

We found that more than half of all deaths due to police violence that we estimated in the USA from 1980 to 2018 were unreported in the NVSS. Compounding this, we found substantial differences in the age-standardised mortality rate due to police violence over time and by racial and ethnic groups within the USA. Proven public health intervention strategies are needed to address these systematic biases. State-level estimates allow for appropriate targeting of these strategies to address police violence and improve its reporting.

Funding

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

中文翻译：

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1980-2019 年美国按种族和州划分的致命警察暴力：网络元回归

 背景

致命的警察暴力负担是美国紧迫的公共卫生危机。越来越多的证据表明，警察造成的死亡对某些种族和民族的人影响尤为严重，这表明警务工作中存在系统性种族主义。美国警察最近发生的备受瞩目的杀戮事件促使人们呼吁对警察暴力行为进行更广泛的公开数据报告。本研究调查了美国政府管理的生命登记数据中警察暴力少报的情况和程度，提供了纠正这些数据集中少报情况的方法，并提出了美国警察暴力造成的死亡人数的修订估计。

 方法

我们将美国国家生命统计系统 (NVSS) 的数据与三个关于警察暴力的非政府开源数据库进行了比较：致命遭遇、绘制警察暴力和统计。我们提取并标准化了每个死者的年龄、性别、美国死亡登记州、死亡年份以及种族和民族（非西班牙裔白人、非西班牙裔黑人、非西班牙裔其他种族和西班牙裔任何种族）针对所有数据源，并使用网络元回归来量化 NVSS 内的漏报率。利用这些比率作为修正系数，我们提供了 1980 年至 2019 年美国所有州、年龄、性别以及种族和族裔群体因警察暴力造成的死亡人数的调整后估计值。

 发现

在美国所有种族和州中，我们估计 1980 年至 2018 年间有 30 800 人死于警察暴力（95% 不确定区间 [UI] 30 300–31 300）；这意味着比 NVSS 报告的死亡人数多 17 100 人（16 600-17 600 人）。在此期间，非西班牙裔黑人因警察暴力造成的年龄标​​准化死亡率最高（每 10 万人中有 0·69 [95% UI 0·67–0·71]），其次是任何种族的西班牙裔人。种族 (0·35 [0·34–0·36])、非西班牙裔白人 (0·20 [0·19–0·20]) 和其他种族的非西班牙裔人 (0·15 [0 ·14–0·16]）。这种差异进一步受到死者性别的影响，并且在各州之间表现出巨大差异。 1980 年至 2018 年间，NVSS 没有报告因警察暴力造成的所有死亡的 55·5% (54·8–56·2)。当汇总所有种族时，警察暴力导致的年龄标准化死亡率在 20 世纪 80 年代为每 10 万人 0·25 (0·24–0·26) 和每 10 万人 0·34 (0·34–0·35) 2010 年代，研究期间增加了 38·4% (32·4–45·1)。

 解释

我们发现，据我们估计，1980 年至 2018 年美国因警察暴力造成的死亡中有一半以上没有在 NVSS 中报告。更复杂的是，我们发现美国境内不同种族和族裔群体因警察暴力而造成的年龄标​​准化死亡率存在显着差异。需要经过验证的公共卫生干预策略来解决这些系统性偏差。州一级的估计可以适当确定这些战略的目标，以解决警察暴力问题并改进其报告。

 资金

比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会、国家少数族裔健康和健康差异研究所以及国家心肺血液研究所。