More White, Middle-aged People are Dying Due to Suicide and Drugs
Princeton University recently conducted a study where the outcome indicated that the overall rate of death of white middle-aged adults has risen sharply over the past 15 years, largely because of drug and alcohol overdoses, suicide, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis of the liver. In fact, the study noted that the rise is similar to the deaths in the U.S. due to AIDs.
In fact, no other industrialized nation has seen such a deterioration in a generation of individual’s health during the particular time frame of this study (1999-2013). Study author Anne Case, professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton is reported to say, “We sort of fell off our chairs when we saw that in the data, because that’s just not what’s happening elsewhere,” in a report by HealthDay. On the other hand, however, death rates of U.S. Hispanics and blacks continue to decrease. The study points to the fact that this “epidemic” crept in quietly because the attention and focus just wasn’t directed there. It raises important questions about individuals in their middle-age as they enter old age in worse health then generations before them.
Authorities have called the results of the suicide and drug abuse deaths both “alarming”, “very alarming”, and “pretty startling.” Also, the study shows that there are now more people aged 45 to 54 dying from alcohol and drug poisonings than from lung cancer. Further, the numbers indicate that adults with the least education (a high school degree or less) experienced the sharpest increase in death rates — up 22 percent.
Changes in both health care and social policy could provide some help for these disturbing figures, but the fact is that middle-aged, white, less-educated people seem to have less hope and more despair and are turning to suicide, drugs, and alcohol to cope with the challenges of life more often than ever before.