To understand how black Americans are impacted by fatal police shootings in each state, we defined an “over-representation ratio”: the percentage of fatal police shootings in which a black American was killed divided by percentage of black Americans in a state. The number one determinant of over-representation in fatal police shootings is the percentage of eligible black Americans registered to vote.
WIRED/MAIMUNA SHAHNAZ MAJUMDER
I found a very interesting piece in Wired Magazine, demonstrating a link between police shootings and voter registration, written by an equally interesting person. I encourage you to read more about Maia Majumder and her article.
Maimuna (Maia) Majumder is an Engineering Systems PhD candidate at MIT and computational epidemiology research fellow at HealthMap. Before coming to MIT, she earned a Bachelors of Science in Engineering Science and a Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Tufts University. Her research interests involve probabilistic modeling, Bayesian statistics, and “systems epidemiology” in the context of emerging infectious diseases. She also enjoys exploring novel techniques for data procurement, writing about data for the general public, and creating meaningful data visualizations. When taking a break from work, Maia moonlights as a jazz vocalist, budding chef, and primal wellness enthusiast who loves Bikram yoga, Zumba, & lifting heavy objects with her awesome husband, Imran Malek.
An Intriguing Link Between Police Shootings and Black Voter Registration
Since January 1, 2016, there have been 714 fatal police shootings in the United States. That comes to 79 deaths a month, 18 a week, and three a day. For context, the US recorded 43 cases of locally transmitted Zika virus and 25 deaths from West Nile in the same time frame.
For most, if not all, public health issues, some segments of the population are more vulnerable than others. Americans who engage in unprotected sex are more likely to contract Zika virus, while older people are more likely to die from West Nile.
The STEAM HUB 