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What We Talk About When We Talk About Deaths of Despair via @freebeacon freebeacon.com/issues/what-we…
In the original paper, Case and Deaton linked this unexpected reversal to increases in deaths from drug overdoses, suicide, and alcohol-related liver diseases.
They also identified declines in physical and mental health and increases in disability, and noted that the mortality increase concentrated among whites without a college degree.
In subsequent research, the pair contended that the decline is the result of "progressively worsening labor market opportunities" across generations, and so may not abate for decades.
Other research has reinforced the nexus of causes Case and Deaton identified, including tying prescription opioid use to labor force drop-out and linking the weakening labor market for low-status whites to declining marriage and civil society.
They show (a) a reversal of trend for the white mortality rate, which (b) is caused primarily by increases in drug, suicide, and alcohol-associated death rates among (c) middle-aged whites without college degrees, probably caused by (d) collapsing labor market conditions
Among other things, this likely helps explain the election of President Donald Trump. But it reflects the social condition of one particular population, and so is not a general diagnosis for society's present ills.
The authors point to "deaths of despair" among Case and Deaton's original groups of interest, but it does not follow that this is the only group affected by those causes of death or that what explains those causes of death within that group will explain it in other groups.
It may make more sense to understand low-status, middle-aged whites as a sort of canary in the coal mine, among whom rising deaths of despair first manifested, but who now make up just part of the overall population being affected.
