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If the white mortality rate for ages 45-54 had held
at their 1998 value, 96,000 deaths would have been
avoided from 1999–2013, 7,000 in 2013 alone. If it
had continued to decline at its previous (1979-1998)
rate, half a million deaths would have been avoided
in the period 1999-2013, comparable to lives lost in
the US AIDS epidemic through mid-2015.
Concurrent declines in self-reported health, mental
health, and ability to work, increased reports of
pain, and deteriorating measures of liver function
all point to increasing midlife distress.
A new paper documents a marked increase in the
all-cause mortality of middle-aged white
non-Hispanic men and women in the United States
between 1999 and 2013.
This change reversed decades of progress in
mortality and was unique to the United States; no
other rich country saw a similar turnaround.
The midlife mortality reversal was confined to white
non-Hispanics; black non-Hispanics and Hispanics at
midlife, and those aged 65 and above in every racial
and ethnic group, continued to see mortality rates
fall.
This increase for whites was largely accounted for
by increasing death rates from drug and alcohol
poisonings, suicide, and chronic liver diseases and
cirrhosis.
Although all education groups saw increases in
mortality from suicide and poisonings, and an
overall increase in external cause mortality, those
with less education saw the most marked increases.
Rising midlife mortality rates of white
non-Hispanics were paralleled by increases in
midlife morbidity. 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.
For more information
Anne Case and Angus Deaton
Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife among
white non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st century
PNAS 2015 : 1518393112v1-201518393.
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