In 2015 Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton published a stunning finding: The mortality rates for working-age white Americans have been rising since 1999. For mortality rates to rise instead of fall is extremely rare in developed countries except as a result of war or pandemic.
White Americans’ Mortality Rates Are Rising. Something Similar Happened in Russia from 1965 to 2005
The troubling trend requires more attention in the U.S.
June 26, 2017
Summary.
In 2015, Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton published a stunning finding: Mortality rates for working-age, white Americans have been rising since 1999. For mortality rates to rise instead of fall is extremely rare in developed countries except as a result of war or pandemic. However, history does offer a recent example of a large, industrialized country where mortality rates rose over an extended period: Russia, in the decades before and after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Although there are important differences between the two phenomena, there are also sobering similarities: between the affected populations, in the causes of death (substance abuse) driving the upsurge, and in the economic and social contexts.