People of colour lose more years of life to police shootings than white people in the U.S., according to a new study that offers a fresh snapshot of the public health repercussions of violent encounters with law enforcement.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from The Counted, a website that tracks police shootings using news reports and other sources, to estimate the number of years of life lost by people who died in these encounters in 2015 and 2016.

Overall, 1,146 people died in police shootings in 2015 and another 1,092 died in 2016, the study found. Based on how young people were when they died and their life expectancies at the time, researchers estimated that combined, these fatalities added up to more than 100,000 years of life lost.

While more than half the of the people who died were white, more than half of the total years of life lost were among people of colour and young adults from 25 to 34 years old.

"These deaths are occurring largely among young people whose life expectancies were long and therefore contributed heavily to the years of life lost," said lead study author Anthony Bui of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.