1 - (SYM 132) Psychological Outcomes and Coping Strategies of Police Brutality Among Black Young Adults

Police brutality presents a significant source of psychological distress for young Black individuals and their communities (Pratt-Harris et al., 2016).  Young Black people are encountering police brutality firsthand, through connections with affected individuals and on news/media platforms (Ortiz, 2016). Moreover, the emergence of virtual platforms has increased the incidence of traumatic exposures to police brutality and intensified concerns about incidents of excessive police force (Allen & Solomon, 2016; Bor et al., 2018; Tynes et al., 2019). To date, police brutality has not been systematically evaluated as an adverse experience  or potentially traumatic event within widely used trauma inventories or clinical practice. Police brutality should be considered in light of its unique facets (e.g., experiencing harm from those who are designated as community protectors). This study aims to bridge gaps in the current racial trauma literature by examining police brutality as a unique form of racial trauma and its clinically significant impact on the mental health of young Black adults, while also exploring coping strategies that may alleviate these effects. We survey Black adults (ages 18 – 35) in New York City on their direct and indirect (e.g., viral media footage) experiences of police brutality. We also examine the effectiveness of various coping strategies in mitigating reactions to this kind of racial trauma. By leveraging self-report data from 330 urban, ethnically diverse Black graduate and undergraduate students surveyed on police brutality exposure, racial trauma, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and coping strategies, this study enriches the psychological literature and informs treatment approaches for at-risk Black young adults. We underscore the importance of treating police brutality as a public health concern, emphasizing its profound effects on Black communities and advocate for more inclusive trauma inventories and clinical assessments. We also emphasize the importance of Black intersectionality across the diaspora. Special consideration should be given to the historical and political conditions of countries of origin, as well as the individual coping factors used by Black young adults.