Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans

[boutons_deux]

Something startling is happening to middle-aged white Americans. Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic group, unlike their counterparts in other rich countries, death rates in this group have been rising, not falling.

the causes and implications of a development that has been puzzling demographers in recent years: the declining health and fortunes of poorly educated American whites. In middle age, they are dying at such a high rate that they are increasing the death rate for the entire group of middle-aged white Americans,

The mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014.

Dying in Middle Age

Death rates are rising for middle-aged white Americans, while declining in other wealthy countries and among other races and ethnicities. The rise appears to be driven by suicide, drugs and alcohol abuse.

“It is difficult to find modern settings with survival losses of this magnitude,”

“This is a vivid indication that something is awry in these American households.”

“Only H.I.V. (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/aids/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier)/AIDS (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/aids/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier) in contemporary times has done anything like this,”

the death rate for middle-aged blacks and Hispanics continued to decline during the same period, as did death rates for younger and older people of all races and ethnic groups.

Middle-aged blacks still have a higher mortality rate than whites — 581 per 100,000, compared with 415 for whites — but the gap is closing, and the rate for middle-aged Hispanics is far lower than for middle-aged whites at 262 per 100,000.

investigating indicators of poor health, discovered that middle-aged people, unlike the young and unlike the elderly, were reporting more pain in recent years than in the past.

A third in this group reported they had chronic joint pain (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/symptoms/joint-pain/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier) over the years 2011 to 2013, and one in seven said they had sciatica (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/sciatica/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier). Those with the least education reported the most pain and the worst general health.

The least educated also had the most financial distress, Dr. Meara and Dr. Skinner noted in their commentary. In the period examined by Dr. Deaton and Dr. Case, the inflation-adjusted income for households headed by a high school graduate fell by 19 percent.

increasing numbers of middle-aged whites said they were unable to work. She also saw matching increases in the numbers reporting pain and the numbers reporting difficulty socializing, difficulty shopping, difficulty walking for two blocks.

With the pain and mental distress data, Dr. Deaton said, “we had the two halves of the story.” Increases in mortality rates in middle-aged whites rose in parallel with their increasing reports of pain, poor health and distress, he explained. They provided a rationale for the increase in deaths from substance abuse (http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/drug-abuse/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier) and suicides.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html

America is a failing society, in unstoppable, permanent decline, life is painful and hopeless for 10Ms.

Ayn Rand, VRWC, conservatives, Repugs should all be thrilled with their American dystopia.

None of the candidates except Bernie is addressing the real problems, let alone offering solutions, or even discussion.

Except Bernie, they're all selling the mythical American Dream.

"work real hard, STFU, as a wage slave for 50 years, and you'll retire happy and comfortably and healthily. Cling bitterly to your guns and Bibles."

Be happy, don't worry, watch TV, eat BigFood shit, vote for me (I won't do shit for you).

[TeyshaBlue]

Men usually die before their wives.
Why?
Because we can.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/08/us-life-expectancy-hits-record-high/16874039/

[Winehole23]

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Case-Deaton-on-White-Mortality-and-Morbidity.pdf

[Winehole23]

We calculated that about 500,000 middle-age Americans died who would still be alive. AIDS has killed more than that but the numbers are in the same ballpark. The comparison is useful because people have a hard time thinking about changes in mortality rates—so many per 100,000. And everyone knows about HIV/AIDS: People wear ribbons and it is seen as a national tragedy. But there are no ribbons, no awareness for this, and there should be.http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/11/04/drug_abuse_and_suicide_why_death_rates_have_spiked _among_middle_aged_white.html

[Winehole23]

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/aug/11/local/la-me-rx-purdue-20130811

[Winehole23]

lagnaippe: https://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/follow-the-pill-understanding-the-u-s-commercial-pharmaceutical-supply-chain-report.pdf

[Winehole23]

In its first year, OxyContin accounted for $45 million in sales for its manufacturer, Stamford, Connecticut-based pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma. By 2000 that number would balloon to $1.1 billion, an increase of well over 2,000 percent in a span of just four years. Ten years later, the profits would inflate still further, to $3.1 billion. By then the potent opioid accounted for about 30 percent of the painkiller market. What’s more, Purdue Pharma’s patent for the original OxyContin formula didn’t expire until 2013. This meant that a single private, family-owned pharmaceutical company with non-descript headquarters in the Northeast controlled nearly a third of the entire United States market for pain pills.

[Winehole23]

New Case-Deaton paper drops.


GDP may be doing great, but people are dying in increasing numbers, especially less-educated people,” Anne Case, one of the authors, said in an interview with The Brookings Institution. “A lot of the increasing prosperity is going to the well-educated elites. It is not going to typical working people.”

She and co-author Angus Deaton, the winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in economics, both of Princeton University, analyzed U.S. death certificate information, including the age of death, cause of death, and educational attainment. They found that life expectancy for the college educated in 2021 was eight-and-a-half years longer than for the two-thirds of American adults without a bachelor’s degree. That’s more than triple the 1992 gap of about two-and-a-half years.https://www.brookings.edu/articles/accounting-for-the-widening-mortality-gap-between-american-adults-with-and-without-a-ba/

[Winehole23]

American exceptionalisim


“The U.S. appears to be the only Western country where life expectancies are trending in different directions” for the more- and less-educated, the authors write.

“All summer there have been news articles about how well the U.S. economy is doing relative to Europe and we’ve been patting ourselves on the back,” Deaton said in an interview. “But if you instead ask how the people are doing, our life expectancy is among the worst.”

[CosmicCowboy]

New Case-Deaton paper drops.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/accounting-for-the-widening-mortality-gap-between-american-adults-with-and-without-a-ba/

smoking and excessive drinking probably play a big part in the disparity, plus fentanal of course.

Plus, I know of two different guys in their fifties that have committed suicide in the last week.

[Winehole23]

Full paper here: https://t.co/M5q0rRBVkr

[Winehole23]

smoking and excessive drinking probably play a big part in the disparity, plus fentanal of course.Sure.

Case and Deaton also point the finger at exorbitant health care costs in the USA

[Winehole23]

Death is particularly indicative of
societal failure when it is not due to a widespread infectious disease—like COVID-19—or even
to failures in the medical system, but to self-inflicted causes like suicide, alcoholism, or drug
overdose.

[Thread]

^^^

Or, it's a (good thing) when the gov't deems it so. It's dynamic, Winester; can be good, or, bad depending on who is President and what's needed at that particular moment in time, it's fully divorced from the truth though and therein rests your aforementioned (failure[s]). The gov't won't talk about it aloud, just throw spare money///whatever is kind of remaining after the Nazi's in Ukraine get their weekly stipend...Nazi's first. Americans somewhere after that.

Give us a brand new phone #, but unlike 911 this phone # is temporaryPERIOD "Don't get comfortable with it, you got a problem call 'em toot sweet, but do not, and I repeat do not get used to it.".........It's temporary, completely unlike "whatever it takes" for the Nazi's in Ukraine.