Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among white non-Hispanic Americans

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...

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...

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...

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.

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.