‘Deaths of Despair’ Are Surging Among the White Working Class

Researchers who sounded the alarm on increasing white working-class mortality blamed the trend Thursday on economic upheaval that created a web of social issues so tightly interwoven that even successful policies would take years to unsnarl them. Mortality and morbidity, which measure chances of death or illness within an age group, began climbing in the late 1990s for less-educated whites between 45 and 54. That came as progress against heart disease and cancer slowed and drug overdoses, suicide and alcoholism -- so-called “deaths of despair” -- became pervasive.

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