A leading cause of death for young men in the United States is police violence, according to a new study.
Researchers from the US found that about 1 in every 1000 black men can expect to die at the hands of police and are roughly 2.5 times more likely to die that way than white men are.
Data on deaths involving police violence was used to understand the risk of being killed by police force across different social groups.
African Americans, American Indian/Alaskan natives and Latino men all face a high lifetime risk of being killed by police than white individuals. However, Latina women, Asians and Pacific Islanders are all less likely.
The average lifetime risk odds of being killed by police is about 1 in 2000 for men and 1 in 33,000 for women. The odds peak between the ages of 20 and 35 years old for all racial and gender groups.
Study leader Frank Edwards said the 1 in 1000 numbers for black men struck the researchers as quite high.
"That's better odds of being killed by police than you have of winning a lot of scratch-off lottery games."
The study, titled Risk of being killed by police use of force in the United States by age, race-ethnicity, and sex, was published by the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States.
The full study can be found here.
Newshub.
