Nichole A. Smith is a medical student in the Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago, in Illinois.
Dexter R. Voisin is a professor and the Sandra Rotman Endowed Chair in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, in Ontario, Canada.
Health Aff (Millwood). 2019 Oct;38(10):1662-1669. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.2019.00560.
Hypervigilance, a state of heightened awareness and watchfulness, is a consequence of violence that has been linked to adverse psychosocial outcomes. Although well documented in veteran populations, it remains poorly quantified in community populations that are exposed to high levels of neighborhood violence. In-person surveys of 504 adults were conducted in Chicago, Illinois, in 2018 to assess the relationships between hypervigilance and exposure to neighborhood violence, including community and police altercations. Exposure to police violence was associated with a 9.8-percentage-point increase in the hypervigilance score (on a 100-point scale)-nearly twice that associated with exposure to community violence (a 5.5-percentage-point increase). Among participants who reported having had a police stop, experiencing the stop as a traumatic event (defined as exposure to actual or threatened death or serious injury) was associated with a 20.0-percentage-point increase in the hypervigilance score. Scoring in the highest quartile of hypervigilance was associated with higher systolic blood pressure (an increase of 8.6 mmHg). Understanding hypervigilance and, importantly, its linkages with violence and health may help inform policing practices and health care responses to violence in urban communities.
过度警觉是一种高度警觉和警惕的状态，是暴力的后果之一，与不良的社会心理后果有关。尽管在退伍军人群体中已有充分记录，但在接触高水平邻里暴力的社区人群中，这种情况仍然难以量化。2018 年，在伊利诺伊州芝加哥市对 504 名成年人进行了实地调查，以评估过度警觉与接触邻里暴力（包括社区和警察纠纷）之间的关系。接触警察暴力与过度警觉评分增加 9.8 个百分点（在 100 分制中）有关-几乎是接触社区暴力（增加 5.5 个百分点）的两倍。在报告有警察拦截经历的参与者中，将这种经历视为创伤性事件（定义为接触实际或威胁到死亡或严重伤害）与过度警觉评分增加 20.0 个百分点有关。过度警觉评分最高四分之一的参与者的收缩压升高（增加 8.6mmHg）。了解过度警觉，以及更重要的是，它与暴力和健康的联系，可能有助于为城市社区的警务实践和暴力应对提供信息。
