Public Health

The deaths of black men at the hands of white police officers in recent years have raised a number of questions about the treatment of racial minorities within the criminal justice system, as well as about patterns of arrest-related deaths more generally. Some researchers have called for Congressional-mandated government databases to be more thorough so they can better find patterns in the violent interactions between police and civilians.

Police officers rarely used force to apprehend and detain criminal suspects and, when they did, most suspects were not injured, according to a two-year study of three police departments in Arizona, Louisiana and North Carolina.

As of May 15, 48 states, four U.S. territories and the District of Columbia had ordered or recommended that school buildings be closed for the rest of the academic year, according to Education Week. Shutdowns in the wake of COVID-19 have affected at least 124,000 public and private schools and 55.1 million students, the outlet reported.

When researchers study the transmission of an infectious disease such as COVID-19 or want to make predictions about how it might impact people in the future, they create epidemiological models.

Until there’s a vaccine for the new coronavirus, infectious disease professionals point to digital contact tracing as a key way for authorities to safely lift lockdowns and begin cauterizing the economic, mental health and other personal trauma the pandemic is inflicting on millions of people worldwide.

Across the political divide, a majority of U.S. residents don’t think their states should reopen their economies yet, according to the results of a new national survey gauging public opinion on a wide range of topics related to COVID-19.

Black Americans appear to have a higher risk of COVID-19 infection compared with other racial groups, preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

Last week, celebrity talk show host Dr. Mehmet Oz faced an immediate backlash after suggesting school closings are not a very effective way to prevent coronavirus deaths and that re-opening schools “may only cost us 2 to 3% in terms of total mortality.”

In a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, researchers surveyed nearly 900 Italian residents to explore what happens when expectations are shattered about how long social distancing measures, like self-isolation, would last. Participants were less willing to do more self-isolating when told that social distancing time frames would run much longer or shorter than they anticipated.