U.S. Counties with More Income Inequality See Higher Rates of Fatal Shootings by Police

A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Bloomberg School of Public Health reveals that areas with higher income inequality experience higher rates of fatal police shootings in the United States.  

The study, published online May 9 in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, analyzed 7,082 fatal police shootings across 3,125 U.S. counties between 2015 and 2022, drawing on data from Mapping Police Violence and the Washington Post's Fatal Force database. The researchers measured income inequality using the Gini Coefficient, a standard economic measure of income distribution.  

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