… particularly for those without college education.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.abstract
The graph shows that death rates for age 45-54 men have been declining in many other rich countries and for US Hispanic men, but US non-Hispanic white men are the outlier in showing increasing death rate from 1999 to 2013.
Too many hotdogs & ham sandwiches.
I would think stress, family responsibilities, hectic lifestyles, and lack of job security takes a toll on ones health.
It is easy to get overwhelmed with everything.
I guess I should feel lucky I made it through that rough age period, 45-54.
I saw that and also heard about it on NPR. The chief causes of the increased death rate is suicide as well as drug overdoses from drugs like Heroin or prescription painkillers like Oxycontin. The same data shows that the sharpest increase is among those at the lower end economically and education wise, and that doesn’t surprise me. There has been and continues to be a pretty big economic dislocation, and this is a group that has been hit hard. What is interesting is that among black and hispanic men in the same group, the rate hasn’t changed, and they pointed out on NPR that it always has been high in this group, that in effect the group of middle age white men are ‘catching up’. The national institute of health and the centers of disease control are looking at the problem, but it seems to me it should be the politicians and the policy makers and economists, because this is not something that can be solved by medicine. The real issue I suspect is that these people have lost hope, that they or their kids will see a better tomorrow, and that is disquieting, to say the least, a lot of ills can flow when hope goes.
I feel as though CC is contributing to my heart palpitations.
Actually, Figure 1 in http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full.pdf shows that US Hispanic men started at slightly lower death rate than US white men in 1990; after 1999, US Hispanic men continued to have declining death rate (along with other rich country men), while US white men had increasing death rate.
Table 1 in the paper also shows that the rate for US black men is still higher than for US Hispanic or US white men, but with a very large decline from 1999 to 2013 (black 796 → 582, white 381 → 415, Hispanic 333 → 270, deaths per 100,000).
Those tables are not for men. They are for both genders. The thread title does not accurately reflect the conclusion of the PNAS paper, which is that death rates for both white men and white women ages 45-54 have been going up. This is not about white middle-aged men. It is about white middle-aged people.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full.pdf
This is also alarming:
In other words, a scary and increasing number of white people ages 30-64 are drinking themselves to death, drugging themselves to death, or killing themselves directly. In addition to death in those age groups, increasing numbers of people in those age groups are reporting significant pain. And this deterioration is not, in the main, caused by obesity:
This does not surprise me.
My parenting experience as the parent of a child with a marked disability has been outside of the norm. (See Andrew Solomon’s Far from the Tree.) I have noticed, anecdotally, that my friends in the autism community raising children with significant needs over a decade or more seem unusually susceptible to increased mortality and poor health.It is very sad.
The over-prescription of opioid painkillers likely explains much of the increase.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db166.htm
Check out this map:
http://www.citylab.com/politics/2013/11/alarming-spread-prescription-pill-deaths-across-us/7610/
Pressure on medical practices to see as many patients as possible, and treat them as cost-efficiently as possible, might push doctors to prescribe painkillers rather than physical therapy or counseling.
However, we obviously need more painkillers approved (sarcasm intended): http://www.forbes.com/sites/melaniehaiken/2014/02/28/is-zohydro-the-super-potent-new-opiate-painkiller-just-too-dangerous/.
I urge you to read the actual article, which discusses the role of opiods in this rising death rate. The authors are careful about making conclusions, but it’s clear that the cohort of middle-aged white people is reporting more pain and more ill-health, and is using more painkilling drugs of all kinds-- Oxycontin, but also alcohol and, now, the new cheaper heroin from Mexico.
Opiods seem to be more a symptom of the underlying problem than the cause of the underlying problem. Whites from ages 30-64 who have a high school education or less, the group that is seeing these big rises in mortality and morbidity, have worse lives than their parents. They have trouble finding good jobs. They’re not leading the lives they thought they’d have, which leads to stress and dissatisfaction, which causes pain and unhappiness, which leads some to self-medicate with drugs/alcohol or to resort to suicide.
Opiod peddlers and Mexican drug entrepreneurs took advantage of the desire for pain-killing in this cohort, but the market was there because the cohort is unhappy, unhealthy and dissatisfied with their lives.
As a member of the uneducated white demographic, I can tell you that the last 8 years have been horrible in many ways. The lack of security, losing life savings, loss of hope for the future and for the kids’ future. That kind of stress weights heavily and the anxiety never, ever lets up. Unemployment in that group has been high and for men of that generation, it can be devastating. They are also seen as privileged because of their skin color even though they are struggling and falling behind. That’s a heck of a Catch-22.
The observed mortality and morbidity dates back to well before the 2008 crash. The steady increase in death rates from drug and alcohol overdoses, cirrhosis, and suicide dates back to 1999. Look at Figure 4 in the paper:
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full.pdf
We see that for all 5-year age cohorts from ages from ages 30 to 64, for non-Hispanic whites, the death rates have been increasing steadily for those causes. You might expect-- I would have expected-- that the 2008 financial crash accelerated the problem, but that’s not evident from the data.
I’m wondering what is protecting Hispanics from this bad trend. Maybe a family-centered culture? To the extent that middle-aged Hispanics are immigrants, maybe the people who decide to immigrate are more resilient on average than native-born Americans? Maybe unlike middle-aged whites, middle-aged Hispanics are better off than their parents, so they are not facing that particular stress? It’s a mystery.
My husband is a white male of 50.
During the recession, he lost two jobs so he started his own business. Since he was not an experienced businessman, he struggled. His health deteriorated so he sold the business with a huge loss. Then he had a massive heart attack. With the business debt and the medical debt, we filed for bankruptcy and foreclosed the house. He was 44 at the time.
Now he has two entry level part-time jobs. That’s all he could get even though he has a graduate degree.
On the 50th birthday, he cried. He cried like a child saying that he is not where he wants to be at this age. This is not the life he envisioned. He cried and all I could do was to hug him and remind him that he has a family that loves him.
It’s surprising that he didn’t find comfort in alcohol or drugs. Or lost hope completely. I’m glad he didn’t
With less education, things must be even tougher.
@HiToWaMom Oh, I ache for you, as I do for the many others caught up in the recession/midlife concurrent crises. Your H is blessed to have you as a spouse. Yes, do let him know how proud you are of how he has handled this challenge. To be working two entry level jobs is honorable IMO. Best wishes to your family.
Thank you for your kind words, @JEM .
I know, or know of, 5 educated middle class/upper middle class white men who have committed suicide. One was my father-in-law, who was early 70’s at the time. Financial and business concerns along with chronic back pain/injury were issues he was battling. He was a founding partner of a small law firm and taught business law for 49 years at a prestigious business school. I do not know any women who have committed suicide.
Hi. I’m sharing this video not for the politics but for the very moving story about a middle-aged man who was a drug addict.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chris-christie-drug-addiction-treatment_56327ee9e4b0c66bae5bc0f3
I was just watching that same video! On the one hand, yes, Christie is right. On the other hand, on CC we’re parents, and we’ve been around the block. We can remember demonizing of scary black addicts. Suddenly when addicts are suburban white people, NOW we say the drug war is bad and we shouldn’t jail addicts?
One of my brothers is in that demographic – 52, no college degree. Diagnosed this summer with stage 4 squamous cell carcinoma in his neck that is inoperable and has not responded to chemo and radiation. Long time smoker and alcoholic. He has no insurance. Lost his business in the recession in part due to his addictions. He has been making poor decisions most of his life. The self-destruction is devastating. Losing his spouse, kids, and business weren’t enough to get him to change his ways. It’s killing my dad to watch this.