The course provides a broad overview of police violence in the United States through the lens of epidemiology. It focuses on (1) the limitations of public health data collection on killings and injuries inflicted by police, (2) the ways in which limits to epidemiologic knowledge can lead to a lack of accountability for police violence, and (3) the influence of police violence on population health and health inequities. Knowledge gained from the course will also be applicable to other areas of study such as injury epidemiology, legal epidemiology, and measurement of health inequalities.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

1. Understand how data on police violence is collected in the United States, including the social forces that shape and limit data collectio
2. Discuss limitations in epidemiologic knowledge about police violence and how this relates to police accountabilit
3. Identify key findings from research on police violence as a determinant of health

A public health or research background is recommended.

• Death Investigations: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (YouTube video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnoMsftQPY
• Umansky, E. It Wasn't the First Time the NYPD Killed Someone in Crisis. ProPublica. 2020 Dec 4. https://www.propublica.org/article/it-wasnt-the-first-time-the-nypd-killed-someone-in-crisis-for-kawaski-trawick-it-only-took-112-seconds
• Feldman JM, Gruskin S, Coull BA, Krieger N. Quantifying underreporting of law-enforcement-related deaths in United States vital statistics and news-media-based data sources: A capture–recapture analysis. PLoS Medicine. 2017 Oct 10;14(10):e1002399. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.100239
• Michaels, Samantha. Why Coroners Often Blame Police Killings on a Made-Up Medical Condition. Mother Jones. 2020 Oct 14. https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/10/why-coroners-often-blame-police-killings-on-a-made-up-medical-condition/