The total number of years of life lost at the hands of police in one year is similar to the number that Americans lose to meningitis, or maternal deaths. It’s more than the years of life lost to accidental gun deaths.

The study findings echo those from past journalistic investigations. Washington Post analyses from the past several years show that black males are shot by police at disproportionately high rates. According to several different studies, black men aged 15 to 34 are between nine and 16 times more likely to be killed by police than other people. In 2017, police killed 19 unarmed black males, down from 36 in 2015, according to The Washington Post. The Post analyses also showed that police usually use fatal force against people armed with knives or guns. (The FBI counted 435 “justifiable homicides” by police officers in 2016, and in 429 of the cases, the person had a firearm when killed.) But unarmed victims of police shootings are also more likely to be minorities, according to FBI statistics.)

Meanwhile, 46 police officers were “feloniously” (as opposed to unintentionally) killed in the line of duty in 2017, down from 66 in 2016. Twenty-seven have been feloniously killed so far this year, and another 15 have died in accidents such as car crashes. Neither the FBI nor this study tracks their average years of life lost, but one source puts the 2017 fallen officers’ average age at 43. Another data source suggests that about two-thirds of people killed by police officers were attacking the officer.

There are ways to minimize police shootings, which happen in other industrialized countries far less frequently than in the United States. Gun control could reduce the number of armed people police encounter. A quarter of those killed by police show signs of mental illnesses, so better mental-health care might further reduce police shootings.

Finally, some police departments have tried de-escalating risky encounters. In Germany, police officers spend years in trainings with titles like “Don’t Shoot,” in which they’re lauded for pulling pepper spray instead of pistols. The Los Angeles Police Department recently began presenting a “preservation-of-life medal to an officer who makes great efforts to avoid a fatal shooting,” the Post reported. Police shootings in L.A. declined—to 15 in 2017, from 21 in 2015. It’s a slight change, but as this study shows, every life, and every year of it, counts.