
Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans - networked
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/15078.full.pdf?
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etangent
Also see Andrew Gelman's post where he reanalyzes data from this paper and
shows that, after adjustment for age, the morbidity increase has been
happening among female population [http://andrewgelman.com/2015/11/18/first-
second-and-third-or...](http://andrewgelman.com/2015/11/18/first-second-and-
third-order-bias-corrections-also-my-ugly-r-code-for-the-mortality-rate-
graphs/)

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cubano
It seems, to me at least, that a rather obvious driver of this rising
mortality could be something that occurred long ago, when many of these at-
risk white men were young and careless teenagers and 20-somethings.

And what could that be, in the early-to-mid 1980's, that was a game changer
for many of these "victims"?

Well, of course, the most obvious driver would the be huge crack cocaine
epidemic of the 80's that pretty much hit like the proverbial ton-of-bricks
and caught almost everyone in my generation by surprise.

I'll admit...I got caught up it too...so much so I spent 45 days in an
inpatient treatment center in 1985, and flunked out of a highly regarded
Engineering university in east central Florida with only 17 credits to go (out
of 195).

Who knows the damage I've done to myself and my body with all the garbage I've
ingested over the decades since...

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cryoshon
FTA: "Self-reported declines in health, mental health, and ability to conduct
activities of daily living, and increases in chronic pain and inability to
work, as well as clinically measured deteriorations in liver function, all
point to growing distress in this population."

So middle aged Americans who are not Hispanic are under a lot of pressures,
many of which are causing deterioration of their health. This deterioration is
likely linked to alcohol and drug consumption in many cases-- clear indicators
of poor mental health, for the most part.

How much do you guys wanna bet that sky-high healthcare costs and poor
economic conditions are the biggest factors in punishing this group? These
negative properties of our society have real consequences...

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bosdev
My takeaway is that deaths due to drug and alcohol poisoning, and liver
disease which is often caused by alcohol abuse, has been rising dramatically
over the past decade.

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shams93
From experience this is a direct result of the long term campaign to "cut
healthcare costs" so it pays to deny care and it pays to kill people off in
middle age then the government walks off with the social security tryst fund
one victim at a time.

~~~
shams93
Now that the cold war is over its basically open season on all working people
around the world. But for the ruling class its a double win save on healthcare
via denial of treatment while confiscating the majority of people's life long
social security.

