Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in Mortality Rates of Young Whites

[Luiz 4,253]

Drug overdoses are driving up the death rate of young white adults in the United States to levels not seen since the end of the AIDS epidemic more than two decades ago — a turn of fortune that stands in sharp contrast to falling death rates for young blacks, a New York Times analysis of death certificates has found.

The rising death rates for those young white adults, ages 25 to 34, make them the first generation since the Vietnam War years of the mid-1960s to experience higher death rates in early adulthood than the generation that preceded it.

The Times analyzed nearly 60 million death certificates collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1990 to 2014. It found death rates for non-Hispanic whites either rising or flattening for all the adult age groups under 65 — a trend that was particularly pronounced in women — even as medical advances sharply reduce deaths from traditional killers like heart disease. Death rates for blacks and most Hispanic groups continued to fall.

 

The analysis shows that the rise in white mortality extends well beyond the 45- to 54-year-old age group documented by a pair of Princeton economists in a research paper that startled policy makers and politicians two months ago.

While the death rate among young whites rose for every age group over the five years before 2014, it rose faster by any measure for the less educated, by 23 percent for those without a high school education, compared with only 4 percent for those with a college degree or more.

The drug overdose numbers were stark. In 2014, the overdose death rate for whites ages 25 to 34 was five times its level in 1999, and the rate for 35- to 44-year-old whites tripled during that period. The numbers cover both illegal and prescription drugs.

“That is startling,” said Dr. Wilson Compton, the deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “Those are tremendous increases.”

Rising rates of overdose deaths and suicide appear to have erased the benefits from advances in medical treatment for most age groups of whites. Death rates for drug overdoses and suicides “are running counter to those of chronic diseases,” like heart disease, said Ian Rockett, an epidemiologist at West Virginia University.

In fact, graphs of the drug overdose deaths look like those of deaths from a new infectious disease, said Jonathan Skinner, a Dartmouth economist. “It is like an infection model, diffusing out and catching more and more people,” he said.

Yet overdose deaths for young adult blacks have edged up only slightly. Over all, the death rate for blacks has been steadily falling, largely driven by a decline in deaths from AIDS. The result is that a once yawning gap between death rates for blacks and whites has shrunk by two-thirds.

“This is the smallest proportional and absolute gap in mortality between blacks and whites at these ages for more than a century,” Dr. Skinner said. If the past decade’s trends continue, even without any further progress in AIDS mortality, rates for blacks and whites will be equal in nine years, he said.

There is a reason that blacks appear to have been spared the worst of the narcotic epidemic, said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, a drug abuse expert. Studies have found that doctors are much more reluctant to prescribe painkillers to minority patients, worrying that they might sell them or become addicted.

“The answer is that racial stereotypes are protecting these patients from the addiction epidemic,” said Dr. Kolodny, a senior scientist at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and chief medical officer for Phoenix House Foundation, a national drug and alcohol treatment company.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/science/drug-overdoses-propel-rise-in-mortality-rates-of-young-whites.html?smid=re-share&_r=0 <full article

[TiphEret 1,320]

That one time when stereotype "saved" black lives.... the irony though!

So do we know if overdose is more from illegal drugs or prescription? 

[Luiz 4,253]

@Twisted Shadows if you look at the full article and compare the amount of it i posted it pretty much is 50% or less. unless i copy pasted it wrong into word the the word count was off i dont think this is a warning worthy post.

 

but i do break that rule just about every time i post a news link because people here tend to not click on the links and just read whats in the OP and if i can only post 50% of it then people here can be easily misled. i'll leave the news posting to other people  .

thanks for the heads up on the rule again  

[Shadow 6,697]

2 minutes ago, Luiz said:

@Twisted Shadows if you look at the full article and compare the amount of it i posted it pretty much is 50% or less. unless i copy pasted it wrong into word the the word count was off i dont think this is a warning worthy post.

 

but i do break that rule just about every time i post a news link because people here tend to not click on the links and just read whats in the OP and if i can only post 50% of it then people here can be easily misled. i'll leave the news posting to other people  .

thanks for the heads up on the rule again  

What I try to do with the rule in mind is give users highlights about the article along with the link. It is what other media sites put on their main pages to perk interest if people wish to read the article.

Btw, it was a soft warning, no points, just a reminder. It is due to these darn copyright laws we have to watch out for.

It is a struggle just to get people here to read posts in full, much less full or 50 percent of an article if you have the usually disinterested crowd.  However there are some of us actually like to read and those interested will read the article via link, plus given an idea of what it is about.

What I'd like to think is that threads like these bring awareness to the forum demographic who may not have known prior similar to how the Drudge Report scans over news articles and posts only links for those interested. People must like that, because it is one of the most successful news sites of its kind.

[Born To Slay 10,996]

It doesn't shock me. A lot of my friends are depressed and white. None are on drugs tho. Some do cut however.

[RAMROD 117,027]

As white as heroin