OTHERWISE: Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century | Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century | Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

Here is the study on which the Times article was based. It tells the grim story of the fate of middle-aged working class white people. Oxycodone and alcohol have led to markedly increasing death rates among those 40 - 55. This is of course related to the economic decline of the working class in America thanks to technological changes, downsizing, the destruction of the unions, and the refusal to expand Medicaid in states where Republicans hold sway. - gwc
Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century | Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

Quiet ‘Epidemic’ Has Killed Half a Million Middle-Aged White Americans

Despite advances in health care and quality of life, white middle-aged Americans have seen overall mortality rates increase over the past 15 years, representing an overlooked "epidemic" with deaths comparable to the number of Americans who have died of AIDS, according to new Princeton University research.

The results are published in a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from Anne Case, the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, and Angus Deaton, the 2015 Nobel laureate in economics and the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs and professor of economics and international affairs.

With data from a variety of surveys and reports, the paper reports a sharp increase in the death rate for middle-aged whites after 1998, which the researchers tie to drugs and alcohol, suicide, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis. This turnaround in mortality reverses decades of progress, the researchers write, and the same pattern is not seen in other rich countries, nor is it seen among African Americans or Hispanics in the United States.

Anne Case, Princeton University

Although death rates related to drugs, alcohol and suicides have risen for middle-aged whites at all education levels, the largest increases are seen among those with the least education, the researchers found. For those with a high school degree or less, deaths caused by drug and alcohol poisoning rose fourfold; suicides rose by 81 percent; and deaths caused by liver disease and cirrhosis rose by 50 percent.

All-cause mortality rose by 22 percent for this least-educated group. Those with some college education saw little change in overall death rates, and those with a bachelor's degree or higher actually saw death rates decline.

In terms of lives lost, had the white mortality rate held at its 1998 value, 96,000 lives would have been saved between 1998 and 2013. If it had continued to fall at the rate of decline seen from 1978-1998, 488,500 deaths would have been avoided between 1999 and 2013. This figure is comparable to the number of deaths caused by the AIDS epidemic in America.