Two Princeton economists, Angus Deaton (2015 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science winner) Anne Case concluded
that rising annual death rates among middle-aged white Americans have been increasing. Deaths in this group are being driven not by
the big killers like heart disease and diabetes but by an epidemic of suicides and afflictions stemming from substance abuse, alcoholic liver disease and overdoses of heroin and prescription opioids.
They came to their conclusions by analyzing health and mortality data from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention and from other sources. Unlike every other age group, unlike every other racial and ethnic
group, unlike their counterparts in other rich countries, death rates in middle-aged white Americans have been rising, not falling.
Primarily, they saw evidence of the declining health and fortunes of poorly educated American whites, which caused the whole group to decline.
Supposedly, these are a similar group of people who support Republican politics more often, which corresponds to the support of hierarchies. Wonder if it relates to stress from the fall of hierarchies, as the causes of death seem to be behavior. Since Republican policies usually hurt the poor, there must be some reason they vote against their best interests.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html?_r=0
