Defining what’s at stake: a person-centered approach to conceptualizing the health and social impacts of police violence in the United States

The increasing efforts among public health researchers to examine the connections between police violence and health outcomes has resulted in growing discoveries about the implications for both direct and vicarious exposure as well as disparities by race and ethnicity. To date, the conceptualization of police violence and health has largely focused on single causes and/or mechanisms at one point in time and focused on individuals most proximal to impact. However, the prevailing conceptualizations are limited in scope. They are relatively linear, do not account for multiple dimensions of harm, and are void of temporal factors that span across communities and generations–all factors that are sustained by forms of structural racism. We offer a reconceptualization guided by the Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP), a public health offshoot of Critical Race Theory, that offers public health professionals a framework and semi-structured process for centering racism in their analyses and implications of police violence on health. Our conceptualization is supported by multiple case studies, and we conclude with concrete recommendations for public health professionals to draw on as strategies to address police violence and advance health equity.