Keeping Your Guard Up: Hypervigilance Among Urban Residents Affected By Community And Police Violence

TLDR

Hypervigilance, a heightened state of awareness linked to adverse psychosocial outcomes, is well documented in veterans but remains poorly quantified among community residents exposed to high levels of neighborhood violence. The study aims to understand hypervigilance and its connections to violence and health to inform policing practices and health care responses in urban communities. Researchers conducted in‑person surveys of 504 adults in Chicago in 2018 to examine the relationships between hypervigilance and exposure to neighborhood violence, including community and police altercations. Police violence exposure increased hypervigilance scores by 9.8 points—almost twice the 5.5‑point rise from community violence—while traumatic police stops added 20 points, and the highest hypervigilance quartile was linked to an 8.6‑mmHg rise in systolic blood pressure.

Abstract

Hypervigilance, a state of heightened awareness and watchfulness, is a consequence of violence that has been linked to adverse psychosocial outcomes. Although well documented in veteran populations, it remains poorly quantified in community populations that are exposed to high levels of neighborhood violence. In-person surveys of 504 adults were conducted in Chicago, Illinois, in 2018 to assess the relationships between hypervigilance and exposure to neighborhood violence, including community and police altercations. Exposure to police violence was associated with a 9.8-percentage-point increase in the hypervigilance score (on a 100-point scale)—nearly twice that associated with exposure to community violence (a 5.5-percentage-point increase). Among participants who reported having had a police stop, experiencing the stop as a traumatic event (defined as exposure to actual or threatened death or serious injury) was associated with a 20.0-percentage-point increase in the hypervigilance score. Scoring in the highest quartile of hypervigilance was associated with higher systolic blood pressure (an increase of 8.6 mmHg). Understanding hypervigilance and, importantly, its linkages with violence and health may help inform policing practices and health care responses to violence in urban communities.