Estimating the Risk of Police Involved Death by Race/Ethnicity and Place

On Friday, September 21, Hedwig (Hedy) Lee, PhD, will present Estimating the Risk of Police Involved Death by Race/Ethnicity and Place as part of the Carolina Population Center 2018-2019 Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.
Lee is a Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis. She also holds a courtesy joint appointment at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, and is an Affiliate Professor of the Center for Research on Demography and Ecology and Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her recent work examines the impact of structurally rooted chronic stressors, such as mass incarceration, on health and health disparities.
Lee is hosted by Carolina Population Center Fellow Kathleen Mullan Harris. Harris is the James E. Haar Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Adjunct Professor of Public Policy and the Director and Principal Investigator of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), a longitudinal study of more than 20,000 teens who are being followed into young adulthood.
Professor Lee is a former Carolina Population Center predoctoral trainee (2003-2009). During her predoctoral traineeship, she researched racial health disparities from a life course perspective using Add Health data.

PRESENTATION ABSTRACT
We used novel data on police-involved fatalities and Bayesian models to estimate mortality risk for Black, Latino, and White men for all US counties by Census division and metropolitan area type. Police kill, on average, 2.8 men per day. Police were responsible for about 8% of all homicides with adult male victims between 2012 and 2018. Black men’s mortality risk is between 1.9 and 2.4 deaths per 100 000 per year, Latino risk is between 0.8 and 1.2, and White risk is between 0.6 and 0.7. Police homicide risk is higher than suggested by official data. Black and Latino men are at higher risk for death than are White men, and these disparities vary markedly across place.

Curriculum Vita (PDF)

Instructors: To arrange for class attendance, contact Kate Allison (akalliso@email.unc.edu) by the Monday before the seminar

Streaming may be available and must be arranged at least one week in advance.

This seminar is part of the Carolina Population Center’s Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series.