Black youth in California were at “substantially” higher risks of being injured during documented encounters with police, according to a University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health analysis of 13 years’ worth of hospital records for almost 16,000 patients aged 19 and younger. Starting roughly in 2013, the injury rates declined overall.
Black girls in those reports were injured more often than any group other than Black boys. Those girls, researchers wrote, had “a rate of injury higher than that of White and Latinx or Hispanic boys … ” according to their breakdown of police encounter-related injuries among youth across seven racial categories.
Whites had the lowest injury rates among all races of youth, according to the analysis, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s JAMA Pediatrics. Of the 15,967 studied patients, 46.2% were Latinx or Hispanic; 24.4% were white; 19% were Black; 5.3% were multi-racial or listed as “other;” 1.8% were Asian or Pacific Islander; and .4% were American Indian or Alaska Native.
Overall, 15- t0 19-year-olds accounted for 14,646 of all reported injuries stemming from encounters with police. Also, 14,154 of the reported injuries involved boys, while 1,791 involved girls.
Those researchers also concluded that:
- Black boys, aged 10 to 14, had an injury rate that was 5.3 times higher than that of white boys in that age group.
- Among boys aged 10 to 14, the respective injury rates, compared to whites, were 1.9 times higher for multiracial youth and those whose race was listed as other, combined; 1.3 times higher for Latinx or Hispanics; and .2 times higher for Asians or Pacific Islanders.
- Black boys, aged 15 to 19, had an injury rate that was 3.5 times higher than that of white boys in that age group.
- Among boys aged 15 to 19, the respective injury rates, compared to whites, were 2 times higher for multiracial youth or youth of some other race, combined; 1.3 times higher for Latinx or Hispanics; 1.1 times higher for American Indian or Alaska Natives; and .2 times higher for Asians or Pacific Islanders.
- Black girls, aged 10 to 14, had an injury rate that was 6.7 times higher than that of white girls in that age group.
- Among girls aged 10 to 14, the respective injury rate, compared to whites, was 1 times higher for Latinx or Hispanics, the only other race for which researchers provided data for this age group.
- Black girls, aged 15 to 19, had an injury rate that was 4.3 times than that of white girls in that age group.
- Among girls aged 15 to 19, the respective injury rates, compared to whites, were .7 times higher for Latinx or Hispanics; 1.3 times higher for multiracial or others; and .1 times higher for Asians or Pacific Islanders.
Instead of numbers, researchers listed “not applicable” rates for certain racial groups in each age and gender category.
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