Does aggressive policing worsen infant health disparities? Evidence from ‘Stop and Frisk’ in New York City

Racism in the U.S. is considered a major public health threat, yet the impact of racial profiling and aggressive policing on health disparities has received less attention in the public policy literature. The Stop, Question, and Frisk program (SQF) in New York City was ruled unconstitutional in 2013 due to racial biases in policing, specifically toward Black and Hispanic communities. While the original intent was to enhance public safety, there are concerns SQF did the opposite by generating distrust and anxiety in communities where it was viewed as racial profiling. Consequently, we investigate the impacts of police stops on a key indicator of public safety and social welfare: infant health. We use restricted infant health data from September 2006 to the end of 2013 and merge this information with detailed data on a mother's community exposure to police stops at the zip code-birth month-year level in New York City. Results show an increase in community exposure to police stops of 10% is associated with a modest, but robust reduction in birth weight of 1.9 g for non-Hispanic Black mothers. We also find small, negative effects on Apgar 5 scores for all mothers. These results are robust to several checks for selection and omitted variable bias, as well as to alternative specifications and falsification tests. Our findings have important implications for both public safety and reducing the gap in racial health disparities, suggesting that even mothers who do not have direct interactions with police could still be modestly impacted by SQF.