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A recent study that was published last month in the medical journal The Lancet discovered what many activists in the Black community have always advocated. That police killing unarmed Black people have taken a major toll on Black America’s mental health.

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The study found that the killing of unarmed Black people by police damages the mental health of Black Americans who’re living in the particular state where the shooting transpired. Researches came to this conclusion by examining data from the U.S. Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System collected between 2013 and 2015. Where they determined that these shootings increase the number of poor mental health days Black people experience. Contrary to white people who were also analyzed for the study showed that “mental health impacts were not observed.”

According to the study’s authors, they theorized that a decline in Black people’s mental health could become apparent in many different areas, “including heightened perceptions of systemic racism and lack of fairness, diminished trust in social institutions, activation of prior traumas, communal bereavement,” and more.

In an email to The Washington Post, Christen Smith University of Texas at Austin professor said, “police violence poses a mental health threat to the black community writ large, which means that our social responsibility is much greater than we previously thought.” Smith went on to write, “the consequences of this [study] is clear — we must undo the policies that allow for the continuation of police killings and acknowledge and treat racial trauma as a mental health issue that impacts our broader society.”

According to Mental Health America, racism also plays a factor in with the state of Black American’s mental state. Institutionalized racism stemming from slavery and “race-based exclusion from health, educational, social and economic resources” is most likely one reason why Black people are more likely to experience mental health issues. Not to mention, that tests created to diagnose depression are more effective at determining the mental health status of white people, meaning black people may go undiagnosed and untreated.

For the majority of Black America, this study is not surprising many of us have known and understood the impact of police violence in our communities.

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