The death rate among the white American population, both male and female, in the age range 45 to 54 increased significantly between 1999 and 2013, according to a new study from Princeton University. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, authors of this research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , indicate that this data represents a setback after decades of progress and improvements in the standard of living and health , and that it affects exclusively the white population non-Hispanic from the United States.
At the same time, the morbidity rate (proportion of people who fall ill in a given place and time) has also increased. The researchers involved have collected numerous testimonies of decline in physical and mental health, deterioration in the capacities to carry out daily activities, a greater number of patients with chronic pain , work incapacity and deterioration of liver functions among the individuals of this population group. The study was funded by the National Institute of Aging (NIA), part of the US National Institute of Health.
The three leading causes of death that have contributed to these statistics among non-Hispanic whites are suicide, drugs and alcoholism, accompanied by chronic liver disease and cirrhosis . The data collected comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Census Bureau, and other sources.
Most worrisome is that in the run-up period, from 1978 to 1998, the death rate among middle-aged whites in the United States was falling at a rate of 2% per year, a level similar to that of France, Germany, Canada, Australia, Sweden and the United Kingdom, and equivalent to the average of the countries of the European Union as a whole. Most of these rich countries have continued to reduce mortality after 1998 , while in the United States the trend changed and began to rise in 1999.
The authors believe that the increasing accessibility to prescription opioids for chronic pain and the economic crisis since 2008 may have contributed to the increase in overdoses, suicides, and liver disorders associated with alcohol abuse. They also point out that adults who are currently in the aforementioned age group will enter old age with worse health than those who are over 65 years old today.
