The death of George Floyd at the hands of police has resurfaced serious questions about police conduct in the United States that has resulted in 1001 deaths of unarmed persons from 2013 through 2019 [1]. Despite widespread protests, public interest in police reform following George Floyd’s death has not been quantified.

Data-driven strategies that identify and prioritize the needs of the public may engender a public health response to improve policing [2,3]. We argue tracking changes in aggregate internet searches is one such strategy, where the content of searches reflects the thoughts and behaviors of the public, the volume of searches reflect their priority, and the location of the search reflects the community [4-6]. This strategy has informed rapid public health responses across many domains, including responses to demand for unproven therapies during the COVID-19 pandemic [7], demand for HIV testing following Charlie Sheen’s public HIV+ disclosure [8], interest in sexual harassment prevention and training following the #MeToo movement [9], and increased suicidal ideation during the initial airing of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why drama [10], to name a few. Moreover, once traditional data became available—in some cases years later—these example findings were confirmed [11,12], underscoring the validity of mining search histories. Similarly, public health leaders can survey internet search trends to rapidly detect public interest in and priorities for police reform.

Herein, we assess public interest in police reforms by mining aggregate internet searches and discovering the types of reforms being searched for by the public, both on the national and US state level (including Washington DC). Such reforms include police training, police unions, police militarization, and the qualified immunity doctrine that reduces the liability police officers face for potential misconduct [13]. To translate these trends into potential policy making, we quantified the police reforms most searched for by each state (including DC) and how each state’s political culture reflected by results from the 2016 presidential election explained differences in searches.

We monitored the fraction of daily Google searches (per 10 million searches) that included the terms “police” and “reform(s)” originating from the United States between January 1, 2010, through July 5, 2020. This strategy would capture “reform the police,” “best police reforms,” etc as markers for general interest in policing reforms. We also monitored searches containing the term “police” with “training,” “union(s),” “militarization,” or “immunity.” These searches were selected because they have been frequently cited by experts as avenues for reforms [14-16], and represent public prioritization of specific policing reform topics. Search rates were monitored both at the national and state (including DC) level.

The United States is at an acute historical juncture with record demand for police reforms sweeping the entire nation. Our results quantify the increasing public interest in police reforms, led by an interest in reforming police training followed by unions, immunity, and militarization nationally. In some states, there is a greater interest in reforming unions or immunity doctrines.

Determining what aspects of police reform to prioritize based on public interest is a challenging problem for elected officials. We argue that monitoring the search queries of a population might clarify the needs and desires of a constituency in real time, especially when little other data is available. The increase in searches related to police reform indicates that the public is actively interested in police reforms, while searches for specific reform topics indicate a desire for leaders to explore these topics. Indeed, many of the reform topics searched for are backed by strong evidence. Restrictions on police unions that potentially advocate for the status quo and hinder reforms and curtailing police immunity that limit criminal and civil liability for police are both effective [20]. On the other hand, some reforms that may be inclusive of searches for “training” are more complex. For example, reforms that implement training on procedural justice or the use of force is associated with less police violence [14], but racial sensitivity and implicit bias training are not associated with less police violence [21,22], even though unarmed Black individuals are more likely to be shot than unarmed White individuals [23]. In these cases, a search for training can serve as the basis for leaders to educate the public and seek additional feedback.

The latter raises a serious limitation of our approach; we cannot link search behavior to a policy preference or identify from whom queries originated. Regardless, searches can predict policy priorities on similar public safety issues, and they overcome many of the limitations that often delay traditional data gathering until the point that the data are no longer actionable [24,25]. Moreover, our focus is restricted to a few reform topics. Additional reform topics, such as body cameras (which have mixed empirical effect) [26] or limiting police funding (with unknown impacts and unanticipated effects) [27] can be studied using our approach. It is important that legislative leaders and policy makers listen to the voices of millions of constituents anonymously searching for solutions and consider policies inclusive of their reform interests as a starting point. Notably, the most high-profile police reform entitled “The Justice Act” proposed by Senator Tim Scott addressed training but did not address police unions, immunity, or militarization. Perhaps amendments to this proposed legislation might consider reforms targeting police unions, given that even in Mr Scott’s home state of South Carolina there were more searches related to police unions than training. Since most policy making occurs among states, decision makers there can rely on our results to identify policies that align with the interests of the public they serve. For instance, in North Dakota or New Mexico, policy makers might consider reforms to police immunity since that reform topic was searched more often than other topics. Extending our work to metropolitan areas can likewise inform more local responses.

While both the American Medical Association [28] and the American Public Health Association [29] have spoken out on police violence, the latter calling it a “public health crisis,” health researchers have done little to advance evidence-based police reforms. As of our writing, only 7 studies on PubMed mention “police” and “misconduct” [30] and 10 mention “police” and “reform(s)” [31] in their title or abstract. This is not to say there is little scientific work on police reform (there is a tremendous literature [32-34]), but little of it has been conducted from a public health perspective or with the benefit of considering strategies popularized by other public health policy successes. For instance, public health advocates have achieved substantial policy reforms to curb deaths attributable to tobacco use [35,36].

Public health scientists, physicians, and other health professionals must do more. Research on policing is essential to public health practice and aligns with public health’s core mission: prevention. The health community has extensive experience studying relevant areas, including unintended medical errors and systematic bias, and can bring those insights to the topic of policing. Moreover, now is the time for health leaders to insist on evidence-based reforms and support science on police reforms that are responsive to the public's needs.

One way to rapidly leverage science to inform policing is to turn to free and abundant big media data. Researchers could further mine internet search data to answer questions related to police practices. For instance, victims of nonfatal instances of police misconduct might search online for help and these digital tracings could be used to evaluate trends and the geographic distribution of misconduct in almost real time. A similar method is already in practice among health researchers who study drug or device adverse events [37,38] and HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis in Africa [39]. Expanding the study of policing to other forms of big media data, including social media, online forums, and news media can similarly provide actionable insights.

Policy changes and public health research in police reform lags while public interest in policing reform is at an all-time high. Research that can help inform policies to improve policing should become a priority among the public health community, with our study serving as a demonstration and call to action. By offering to provide policy makers contemporary insights into policing reform topics their constituents have sought online, we hope that policy makers and elected officials will be inspired to act to prevent unnecessary deaths, like Mr Floyd’s.