A clinical professor at Drexel University set out to rebut a recent study by Harvard University that found that white people are more likely to be killed by police that blacks.
The competing studies focused on police encounters with the population- at-large, both serving up different findings on what groups are most at risk. A new study released Tuesday by Drexel University found that blacks and Hispanics respectively, are 2.8 and 1.7 times more likely to die during run-in with police than whites.
Drexel’s findings are counter to those of a ‘working study‘ at Harvard that suggests while African-Americans are more likely to experience force used against them by law enforement, they are less likely to be shot and killed than white people. The study cites stats from Washinton Post police shooting tracker from for one month which show, 23 of the 72 people shot and killed by police were black.
The Harvard study does not make adjustments based on population totals; while Drexel’s does.
For the study dubbed, “Racial/Ethnic Disparities in the Use of Lethal Force by US Police, 2010-2014,” researcher and study author James Buehler, MD used national death records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from 2010-2014 were used.
Buehler found that of the 2,285 deaths attributed to law enforcement action over that five-year period (1.5 deaths per million in U.S. population per year), 96 percent occurred among males 10 years or older.
- Black: 6.8 deaths per million in population
- Hispanic: 4.1 per million
- White: 2.5 per million
- Asian or Pacific islander: 1.5 per million
- American Indian or Alaska natives: 6.9 per million
According to the campus publicaiton DrexelNOW, Dr. Buehler conducted his study — which took a population-level perspective — in response to widespread interpretations of a study released in the summer by Harvard.
Source: (AURN)
