A group of middle-aged whites in the U.S. is dying at a startling rate

[hotatlboi]

all you can eat, all you can drink, sit on the couch and watch football and NASCAR

I really think you hit the nail on the head here as to what general problems this demo has with their health.

 

[Kabluey]

Apparently heroin use has more than doubled for non Hispanic white people since 2002.
Http://www.time.com/3946904/heroin-epidemic

During the same period, cocaine use has declined.
www.rand.org/news/press/2014/03/10.html

Problem with these studies is that they're conflicting. Clearer information would be more useful than 'drugs are bad' noninformation.

There's also crystal meth and crack...

Whatever the deal is, people are either self medicating, or they're growing new addictions.

 

[Kulindahr]

Yeah of course that is it! How could we be so stupid that this has to be pounded in our heads by you in every thread.

I mean things like technology that reduce labor don't account for job loss.

Where are the electric company power meter readers? The power meters on building are now read automatically. Gone is the meter reader, usually a decent paying gig with generous benefits working for a monopolized utility.

The same for toll booth collectors replaced by cards and stickers.

Railroad crews reduced with technology..... so on and so.

These are example of jobs that haven't been outsourced.

What is left , corporate America and government agencies are replacing with low wage paying contractors who offer nothing in benefits.

That's another reason for the decline of unions: robots don't get to negotiate contracts. A number of U.S. companies in the last few years have built new factories in the U.S. instead of overseas, bringing operations back here, but where they were employing a thousand people they now have a few dozen overseeing robots doing the same work. And as robots improve, they get used in more and more places that used to use not just skilled but semi-skilled labor. I read an article in a paper here a while back telling how the longshoremen in Portland are worried because robots are starting to displace them as well.

In theory this provides people with more leisure time, but in practice it just makes people unemployed, or employed with low wages. As a result, they get crappy medical care because they can't afford better, or what they can get they can't afford to use.

This points up a problem with any medical care program, government or private: as wages drop, there is less of a revenue base to pay for medical care. We seem to be headed in a direction Jerry Pournelle described several decades ago and Illustrated in a number of science fiction novels, where more and more of the population survives only because of welfare due to the fact that there just aren't jobs, and society breaks down into two classes: taxpayers and non-payers. In his novels society ends up collapsing because of failure to find a way to deal with the new economic reality that there just aren't jobs for most people. He even correctly forecast the drop in life expectancy.

We need to face the likelihood that what he describes is our future, and develop a new economic system that won't leave us with vast unemployed masses and a fortunate few who can still have work.

 

[Benvolio]

That's another reason for the decline of unions: robots don't get to negotiate contracts. A number of U.S. companies in the last few years have built new factories in the U.S. instead of overseas, bringing operations back here, but where they were employing a thousand people they now have a few dozen overseeing robots doing the same work. And as robots improve, they get used in more and more places that used to use not just skilled but semi-skilled labor. I read an article in a paper here a while back telling how the longshoremen in Portland are worried because robots are starting to displace them as well.

In theory this provides people with more leisure time, but in practice it just makes people unemployed, or employed with low wages. As a result, they get crappy medical care because they can't afford better, or what they can get they can't afford to use.

This points up a problem with any medical care program, government or private: as wages drop, there is less of a revenue base to pay for medical care. We seem to be headed in a direction Jerry Pournelle described several decades ago and Illustrated in a number of science fiction novels, where more and more of the population survives only because of welfare due to the fact that there just aren't jobs, and society breaks down into two classes: taxpayers and non-payers. In his novels society ends up collapsing because of failure to find a way to deal with the new economic reality that there just aren't jobs for most people. He even correctly forecast the drop in life expectancy.

We need to face the likelihood that what he describes is our future, and develop a new economic system that won't leave us with vast unemployed masses and a fortunate few who can still have work.

Often have I said this. Our policy of high immigration ignores the fact that less labor is needed.

 

[TX-Beau]

Often have I said this. Our policy of high immigration ignores the fact that less labor is needed.

Sadly for Ben, we don't have a "policy of high immigration."

 

[opinterph]

Clearer information would be more useful than 'drugs are bad' noninformation.

Heroin is bad.

Vital Signs: Demographic and Substance Use Trends Among Heroin Users — United States, 2002–2013
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report; July 10, 2015)

More people die each year from drug overdose than from firearms.

During 2014, 47,055 drug overdose deaths occurred in the United States.

Increases in Drug and Opioid Overdose Deaths — United States, 2000–2014
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report; December 18, 2015)

 

[peeonme]

I believe that stress plays a major role in shortening a person's life. In America a person from the group being described is subject to more stress than people from the same group in nations that take care of their people.

Health care tied to a job that can end next week is not real health care. High co pays and deductibles keep a person from seeking help when it's needed.
HMOs (which are prevalent in work place health care) seek to keep a person functioning with as little care as possible, when a shot is given to mask the pain rather then surgery to fix a joint a person becomes less active as the shot wears off, gains weight and is susceptible to other health risks such as hypertension and diabetes.
I have had to fight HMOs myself, doctors seem to fear them.

Education plays a role, but I can't tell you how many educated people I know that ended up in low pay high stress jobs.
People turn to alcohol, I know of many, far too many that use beer to numb themselves to life, I am the anomaly in my social circle or family because I don't drink.

It wasn't just one party that brought this about, both were in favor of trade deals that put Americans out of work and forced them in to low pay high stress jobs with no benefits.

 

[Kabluey]

Heroin is bad.

Vital Signs: Demographic and Substance Use Trends Among Heroin Users — United States, 2002–2013
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report; July 10, 2015)

More people die each year from drug overdose than from firearms.

The missing information being the granular data on who does what drugs and what the effects are.

Currently a broad-brush all drugs are bad approach is used, often to stifle debate. That doesn't answer the question of which drugs are less harmful within a population.

On the sidelines there are people arguing sugar is as addictive as heroin, but that's white noise. Heroin really is that bad, but have certain demographics switched to it because other less-lethal drugs are no longer available, or has addiction increased for those same populations?

 

[Benvolio]

Illegal drugs is not an adequate explanation for the difference between whites and the minorities.

 

[kallipolis]

Illegal drugs is not an adequate explanation for the difference between whites and the minorities.

It's an explanation, without it being the only explanation.

I agree that the captioned research conclusions leave me to believe that it's not as black, and white as the researchers suggest.

 

[evanrick]

Its taken years for democrats to talk about suicide, drug addiction, and alcoholism to be the consequences of republican policies and the hundreds of thousands of resulting deaths.

 

[Kulindahr]

The missing information being the granular data on who does what drugs and what the effects are.

Currently a broad-brush all drugs are bad approach is used, often to stifle debate. That doesn't answer the question of which drugs are less harmful within a population.

On the sidelines there are people arguing sugar is as addictive as heroin, but that's white noise. Heroin really is that bad, but have certain demographics switched to it because other less-lethal drugs are no longer available, or has addiction increased for those same populations?

I happen to know a former drug dealer who was economically alert. He noticed that when there was a good supply of marijuana at a discount of 20% or more off the generally prevailing price, less heroin got sold. Are the effects of the two similar enough that this is a substitution of something with similar results on the mind? Or does it reflect an awareness of relative safety of the substances? Or something else?

I do know that a lot of people in high-stress misery will turn to just about anything that will change their mental state just to escape the relentless, crushing hopelessness. That has to be a factor in the change in lifespan.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's an explanation, without it being the only explanation.

I agree that the captioned research conclusions leave me to believe that it's not as black, and white as the researchers suggest.

What are you saying isn't "as black, and white as the researchers suggest"? Their data?

 

[Kulindahr]

Its taken years for democrats to talk about suicide, drug addiction, and alcoholism to be the consequences of republican policies and the hundreds of thousands of resulting deaths.

Partly because it takes years to observe and sift out exactly what elements are causes and which are effects, and the degrees of those relationships. Also, partly because for a good many years everyone was enamored of deregulation (without actually understanding it) and so unwilling to entertain the idea that policies they were supporting might be doing harm.

 

[kallipolis]

What are you saying isn't "as black, and white as the researchers suggest"? Their data?

The researchers' conclusions are an explanation...not the only explanation...the data is another matter.

 

[Kulindahr]

The researchers' conclusions are an explanation...not the only explanation...the data is another matter.

They didn't offer much for explanation that I saw, just data trends (though I wish the article gave a definition of "poisoning").

 

[rareboy]

It also appears that the study has overlooked an even more important trendline.

The Urban Institute’s analysis of the same data showed that the average increase in age-specific mortality rates for whites ages 45 to 54 was more than three times higher for women than men. The mortality rate among women increased by 26.8 deaths per 100,000 people, while the rate for men increased by 7.7 deaths.

So although men still have higher mortality rates and tend to die at a younger age than women, the rates of increase are lower for the male gender. “Women are starting to look more like men in terms of their survival and underlying mortality patterns,” Laudy tells U.S. News.

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles...tes-for-middle-aged-whites-are-rising-but-why

I think that the other important figure that is missing here is what the real number of deaths per 100,000 middle aged males is for each country. Are white male deaths per 100K now dramatically different than other industrialized countries?

As has been noted, suicides among armed forces personnel are 3 times that of the general population, so this would skew the numbers upwards for countries with many males who have seen active service. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

It is also possible that dealing with the aftermath of war has produced more opioid dependent males as well as painkillers are prescribed for the wounded.

I also just want to see all the raw data for each country.

 

[Benvolio]

I certainly would like to see the poisons involved in that dramatic increase in poisonings.

 

[T-Rexx]

I certainly would like to see the poisons involved in that dramatic increase in poisonings.

Some of those (maybe a lot?) are suicides which were ruled accidental deaths by the coroners due to a lack of proof of suicidal ideation on the part of the deceased.

 

[kallipolis]

Some of those (maybe a lot?) are suicides which were ruled accidental deaths by the coroners due to a lack of proof of suicidal ideation on the part of the deceased.

Noteworthy observation............