Sinai Health System, Sinai Urban Health Institute, 1500 S. California Ave K443, Chicago, IL 60608, USA.
University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, 1603 W. Taylor Street, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.
Epidemiol Psychiatr Sci. 2019 Feb 5;29:e19. doi: 10.1017/S2045796019000015.
Little is known about the potential health impact of police encounters despite a ubiquitous police presence in many disadvantaged urban environments. In this paper, we assess whether persistent or aggressive interactions with the police are associated with poor mental health outcomes in a sample of primarily low-income communities of colour in Chicago.
Between March 2015 and September 2016, we surveyed 1543 adults in ten diverse Chicago communities using a multistage probability design. The survey had over 350 questions on health and social factors, including police exposure and mental health status. We use sex-stratified logistic regression to examine associations between persistent police exposure (defined as a high number of lifetime police stops) or aggressive police exposure (defined as threat or use of police force during the respondent's most recent police stop) and the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or depressive symptoms.
Men reporting a high number of lifetime police stops have three times greater odds of current PTSD symptoms compared with men who did not report high lifetime police stops (OR 3.1, 95% CI 1.3-7.6), after adjusting for respondent age, race/ethnicity, education, history of homelessness, prior diagnosis of PTSD and neighbourhood violent crime rate. Women reporting a high number of lifetime police stops have two times greater odds of current PTSD symptoms, although the results are not statistically significant after adjustment (OR 2.0, 95% CI 0.9-4.2). Neither persistent nor aggressive police exposure is significantly associated with current depressive symptoms in our sample.
Our findings support existing preliminary evidence of an association between high lifetime police stops and PTSD symptoms. If future research can confirm as causal, these results have considerable public health implications given the frequent interaction between police and residents in disadvantaged communities in large urban areas.
尽管警察在许多贫困城市环境中无处不在，但人们对警察接触可能对健康造成的影响知之甚少。本文评估了在芝加哥的一个主要由低收入有色人种社区组成的样本中，与警察持续或咄咄逼人的互动是否与心理健康不良结局有关。
在 2015 年 3 月至 2016 年 9 月期间，我们使用多阶段概率设计对十个不同的芝加哥社区的 1543 名成年人进行了调查。该调查包含 350 多个关于健康和社会因素的问题，包括警察接触和心理健康状况。我们使用按性别分层的逻辑回归来检查持续的警察接触（定义为一生中被警察拦下的次数较多）或咄咄逼人的警察接触（定义为受访者最近一次被警察拦下时受到威胁或使用警察力量）与创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）或抑郁症状的存在之间的关联。
在调整了受访者年龄、种族/民族、教育程度、无家可归史、先前诊断的 PTSD 和社区暴力犯罪率后，报告一生中被警察拦下次数较多的男性出现当前 PTSD 症状的可能性是没有报告高次数被拦下的男性的三倍（比值比 3.1，95%置信区间 1.3-7.6）。报告一生中被警察拦下次数较多的女性出现当前 PTSD 症状的可能性是两倍，但调整后结果无统计学意义（比值比 2.0，95%置信区间 0.9-4.2）。在我们的样本中，持续的或咄咄逼人的警察接触均与当前抑郁症状无显著关联。
我们的研究结果支持了高一生警察接触与 PTSD 症状之间存在关联的现有初步证据。如果未来的研究能够证实这种关联是因果关系，鉴于警察与贫困社区居民在大型城市地区经常互动，这些结果对公共卫生具有重要意义。
