Correlation between US police rates of obesity and police gun deaths

[StringJunky]

What questions would I ask a search engine to get the data and possible fruitful search strings on the subject?

Edited May 16, 2023 by StringJunky

[studiot]

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

What questions would I ask a search engine to get the data and possible fruitful search strings on the subject?

First thing to remember is that correlation does not imply causation.

Taking that on board look for some factor or factors common to both say the years 1970 to 2020, a convenient half century.

You could also try geographic classification by state or region.

You could look at age.

I expect others will offer more choices.

[StringJunky]

2 minutes ago, studiot said:

First thing to remember is that correlation does not imply causation.

Taking that on board look for some factor or factors common to both say the years 1970 to 2020, a convenient half century.

You could also try geographic classification by state or region.

You could look at age.

I expect others will offer more choices.

Yes, I'm not implying causation. It's more of a request how I would approach this as a hypothetical question, with a view to seeing if there is a pattern and also possible confounding factors. Thanks for the pointers.

[iNow]

I’m the US, a persons body weight is likely treated as PII and personal / confidential… and we barely keep records on police induced deaths… on purpose / by law. 

A better question might be “where can I find the most reliable data on these topics” before asking how best to query it. 

[TheVat]

Officer-related shootings, and resulting mortality, is tracked by the FBI's National Use-of-Force Data Collection  but that is too recently started to be much use. (2015)   

The Law Enforcement Epidemiology Project has a little over two decades of data.

https://policeepi.uic.edu/data-civilian-injuries-law-enforcement/facts-figures-injuries-caused-law-enforcement/

This group, run from the CDC, has been tracking violent deaths for a couple decades.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Violent_Death_Reporting_System

As for finding data on fat cops, good luck!  Maybe some industry clearinghouse tracks doughnut consumption in specific areas?  😏

[Peterkin]

No, but you might be able to able find something on obesity-related illness: heart disease, hypertension, diabetes.

I doubt you could get a direct correlation; more likely statistics suggestive of a relationship.

[iNow]

47 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Officer-related shootings, and resulting mortality, is tracked by the FBI's National Use-of-Force Data Collection  but that is too recently started to be much use. (2015)   

To the best of my knowledge, many states and jurisdictions don’t even bother reporting their incidents so the database has a bit of a sampling / selection bias.