Black and Blue: An integrated conceptual framework for understanding the trauma and mental impacts of police violence exposure in Black communities

ABSTRACT

Because repeated incidents of police violence against unarmed Black people are increasingly visible, as a result of technological advances, there is growing need to understand their potentially traumatic mental health effects for other Black people. This narrative review provides an overview of critical race theory, the stress, appraisal, and coping theory, trauma theory, racial trauma theory, and emotional contagion theory to develop an integrated conceptual framework for understanding and explaining psychosocial processes by which exposure to police violence against unarmed Black people affect the mental health of other Black people at individual and community-levels. Black and Blue, a new conceptual framework, adds to the social science literature on police violence in historically marginalized communities. The conceptualization of this framework suggests implications for practice, policy, and research about police violence and trauma exposure in Black communities. Future research is needed to expand and subsequently test the validity and rigor of the Black and Blue framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Police violence
• Black people
• communities
• trauma
• mental health

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the study participants for generously sharing their time and experiences with us.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this publication was supported by a one-year doctoral fellowship awarded to the first author for the completion of her dissertation project.