According to a recent analysis, the rate of black American deaths related to alcohol, drugs, and suicide has surpassed that of white deaths of “Deaths of Despair.”
The phrase “deaths of despair” became well-known when a groundbreaking study revealed a years-long increase in middle-aged white Americans’ overall cause death rate, which was primarily caused by overdoses from drugs and alcohol, suicide, and other causes.
One important factor linked to this rise was found to be lower educational attainment. Simultaneously, middle-aged black and Hispanic Americans were becoming less dead.
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Deaths of Despair
Recent research, which was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, shows that middle-aged adults are dying significantly less from despair. The study monitored the mortality rates among individuals 45 to 54 years old from 1999 to 2022 due to drug overdose, alcohol liver disease, and suicide. In 2013, researchers discovered that the frequency of these deaths among whites was roughly twice that of blacks, with 72.15 deaths per 100,000 people as opposed to 36.24 deaths per 100,000.
However, by 2022, middle-aged black people’s rate of despair-related fatalities had almost tripled to 103.81 per 100,000, surpassing the rate for white people, who had 102.63 per 100,000. In addition to demonstrating that American Indian or Alaska Native persons had a greater rate of fatalities from despair than other racial or ethnic groups during all research years, the study attributes the jump in drug overdose deaths to an increase in these deaths among black individuals.
Deaths of Despair
AIANs had a midlife mortality rate from these causes of 241.7 per 100,000 by 2022; their rate of death from alcoholic liver disease was 108.83 per 100,000, more than six times greater than that of white people.
The report notes that “growing disparities in deaths of hopelessness among Black and American Indian or Alaska Native people were primarily due to disproportionate early mortality from drug- and alcohol-related causes, which increased leading up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Deaths of Despair
The midlife death rate from these causes among Asian Americans was 241.7 per 100,000 in 2022. The incidence of fatalities from alcoholic liver disease was more than six times higher in this group (108.83 per 100,000) than in the white population.
According to the study, “disproportionate early mortality from drug- and alcohol-related causes, which increased leading up to and during the COVID-19 pandemic,” was a major contributing factor in the rising disparities in deaths of despair among Black and American Indian or Alaska Native people.
Deaths of Despair
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