Dear Budget Office Friends -
Today the Office of the Budget Director releases the Council’s first health note. This health note was authored by the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Impact Project through its partnership with the Council’s Office of the Budget Director.
The Budget Office is collaborating with the Health Impact Project to produce a series of health notes on legislation before the Council. Health notes help lawmakers learn the potential health implications of proposed legislation and policies. They are brief, objective, and nonpartisan summaries of how proposed legislation could affect health. The notes draw from the best available peer-reviewed research, scientific data, and public health expertise to help legislators understand the connections between decisions in a variety of sectors and the health of their constituents. Each note describes the evidence and categorizes its strength.
Health notes aim to provide legislators with data to support decision-making. They identify the potential and often-overlooked connections between these various sectors and health. Health notes are not intended to make definitive or causal predictions about how a proposed bill will affect health and well-being of constituents. They do not provide a cost-benefit analysis or recommend to support or oppose legislation. Rather, Councilmembers can use a health note as one additional source of information to consider during policymaking.
The first health note is on the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2020 (Bill 23-882). The Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety is holding a hearing on this bill tomorrow, October 15, from 9am to 6pm. The hearing can be viewed live here https://dccouncil.us/council-videos/ or here http://video.oct.dc.gov/DCC/jw.html.
The report’s key findings include:
The health effects from implementing policies to prohibit the use of neck restraints by law enforcement officers are not well researched. Studies have shown, however, that certain types of neck restraints can cause injury or death.
There is strong evidence that officer-involved deaths and serious use of force incidents can negatively affect mental health of family members, communities, and officers, with Black communities disproportionately affected.
There is a fair amount of evidence of short-term benefits of specific types of implicit bias training for law enforcement officers; however, the longer-term effects are not well researched.
There is a fair amount of evidence that the adoption of strict policies on use of force tend to reduce police officers’ use of physical coercion, with potential benefits for health by decreasing the risk of injury during encounters between police and the public.
There is strong evidence that the use of chemical and projectile weapons, such as tear gas or rubber bullets, in crowd-control settings can cause significant injuries, permanent disabilities, and death.
There is strong evidence that civic engagement, which includes voting, is positively associated with health, and there is a fair amount of evidence specifically documenting the association between voting and health outcomes including physical and mental health, health behaviors, and well-being. One study also suggested a potential relationship between voting and lower rates of recidivism.
Research shows that Black Americans are more likely than whites to experience an injury related to a police intervention and to be killed by police officers. Although there is limited research on the relationship between negative police encounters and health outcomes, the available evidence shows that Black and Latino men who report more frequent police encounters report higher rates of trauma and anxiety and that among Black men, experiencing frequent, discriminatory law enforcement encounters is associated with higher depressive symptom scores.
To complete this health note, the Health Impact Project staff conducted an expedited literature review using a systematic approach to minimize bias and identify recently published studies. The team screened 476 titles and abstracts published between September 2015 and September 2020. The health note was reviewed by a panel of experts, including Dr. Sheldon Greenberg of Johns Hopkins University and Dr. William Terrill of Arizona State University.
As always, my team and I are available to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you for your assistance and support,
Jen Budoff
Health Note on the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2020 (Bill 23-882)