Comment by barry-cotter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by barry-cotter | Hacker News Reader

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Among major economies the US is the only one besides South Korea where suicide rates have increased since 1997. See graph[1] from this paywalled story [2]. More impressionistically the Irish, British and Australian press don’t talk about deaths of despair. Less impressionistically there’s no evidence for them outside the the US[3].

> 'Deaths of despair' on the rise in the US: Why here and not in other nations?

> Mortality rates in the United States have increased, with suicide and poisoning by alcohol and drugs significantly contributing to the increase, alongside the cardiovascular effects of rising obesity. The causes of despair-related deaths involve factors such as increased isolation and people’s attempts to use substances to satisfy a lack of dopamine in the brain. Some experts suggest that the United States should look at how other countries support the human life cycle and adopt these policies to help prevent despair-related deaths.

[1]https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=pmpweb...

[2] https://www.economist.com/international/2018/11/24/suicide-i...

[3] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/deaths-of-despair-...

> More impressionistically the Irish, British and Australian press don’t talk about deaths of despair.

While that phrase is uniquely American, it certainly has been used to describe decreases in living conditions in the UK. [1]

It's impossible to accurately compare the US with Western Europe where we've had social safety nets and affordable health care. Unfortunately, in the UK a decade of under-staffing, under-funding and stealth privatisation has crippled the NHS. If you go to the former industrial towns in England you can definitely see the same issues as America's Rustbelt play out but to a lesser extent.I think most Europeans would be shocked by the poverty and deprivation in certain parts of the UK.

[1] https://www.health.org.uk/news-and-comment/podcast/episode-0...

I don't have any confidence in Russian or Chinese public health data, and little confidence in the data from India. That said, in the case of India: at the start of the pandemic the government _asked the urban construction industry_ for their views on reinstating rail services which could enable internal migrant workers to return to their villages and thus potentially deprive industry of labour - a move which I argue puts the country closer to fascism than neoliberalism.

The fact that the phrase deaths of despair has not been reused much outside the USA at best tells us something about propagation of language.

> The fact that the phrase deaths of despair has not been reused much outside the USA at best tells us something about propagation of language.

This is ridiculous. US culture is so overwhelmingly influential people there were Black Lives Matter protests in 40 countries outside the US[1]. The US’ cultural dependencies would absolutely be talking about deaths of despair if they had them.

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/map-george-floyd-protests...

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