Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jun;7(3):393-397.
doi: 10.1007/s40615-020-00738-2. Epub 2020 Apr 6.

Racial Profiling Is a Public Health and Health Disparities Issue

Cato T Laurencin  1   2   3   4   5   6 , Joanne M Walker  7
Affiliations

Racial Profiling Is a Public Health and Health Disparities Issue

Cato T Laurencin et al. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2020 Jun.

Abstract

Racial profiling is a public health and health disparities issue through its disparate and adverse health impact on those targeted by this practice, as well as members of their communities. We discuss six ways police profiling and racial discrimination adversely impact Black American health. We identify four direct and two indirect ways. Four direct ways are (1) violent confrontation with police that causes injury or death; (2) police language that escalates a confrontation through micro-aggressions or macro-aggressions; (3) sub-lethal confrontations with police; (4) adverse health consequences of perceived or vicarious threat, i.e., the mere belief in potential harm by police injures health. There are two indirect ways: (5) through knowledge of or personal relationship with someone who directly experienced racial profiling; (6) through public events without a personal knowledge of the unarmed person threatened or killed by police as a result of racial profiling, but where such events cause both individuals and the community at large to perceive a threat. We support recognition of racial profiling as a public health and health disparities issue. We recommend support for community programs that address the clinical health effects of racial profiling. We also recommend widespread engagement of trauma-informed policing (TIP) that acknowledges the clinical effects of racial profiling.

Keywords: Health disparities; Mental health; Police; Public health; Racial profiling; Structural racism.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

References

    1. Warren PY, Farrell A, The Environmental Context of Racial Profiling. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2009. 623: p. 52–63.
    1. Bor J, et al. , Police killings and their spillover effects on the mental health of Black Americans: a population-based, quasi-experimental study. Lancet, 2018. 392(10144): p. 302–310. - PMC - PubMed
    1. McLeod MN, et al. , Police Interactions and the Mental Health of Black Americans: a Systematic Review. J Racial Ethn Health Disparities, 2019. doi: 10.1007/s40615-019-00629-1. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Staggers-Hakim R, The nation’s unprotected children and the ghost of Mike Brown, or the impact of national police killings on the health and social development of African American boys. J of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 2016. 26(3–4): p. 390–399, doi: 10.1080/10911359.2015.1132864. - DOI
    1. Krieger N, Chen JT, Waterman PD, Kiang MV, Feldman J, Police Killings and Police Deaths Are Public Health Data and Can Be Counted. PLoS Med, 2015. 12(12): e1001915. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001915. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources