Why 'Deaths of Despair' May Be a Warning Sign for America

Psychologists ... snorffles

 

Life expectancy in the United States declined again in 2017, the government said Thursday in a bleak series of reports that showed a nation still in the grip of escalating drug and suicide crises.

The data continued the longest sustained decline in expected life span at birth in a century, an appalling performance not seen in the United States since 1915 through 1918. That four-year period included World War I and a flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people in the United States and perhaps 50 million worldwide.

Public health and demographic experts reacted with alarm to the release of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual statistics, which are considered a reliable barometer of a society's health. In most developed nations, life expectancy has marched steadily upward for decades.

"I think this is a very dismal picture of health in the United States," said Joshua M. Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Life expectancy is improving in many places in the world. It shouldn’t be declining in the United States."

"Do we say this is the new normal? Or can we say this is a tractable problem?"

Drug overdoses set another annual record in 2017, cresting at 70,237 - up from 63,632 the year before, the government said in a companion report. The opioid epidemic continued to take a relentless toll, with 47,600 deaths in 2017 from drugs sold on the street such as fentanyl and heroin, as well as prescription narcotics. That was also a record number, driven largely by an increase in fentanyl deaths.

The geographic disparity in overdose deaths continued in 2017. West Virginia again led the nation with 57.8 deaths per 100,000 people, followed by Ohio, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia. Nebraska, by contrast, had just 8.1 drug overdose deaths per 100,000 residents.

Other factors in the life expectancy decline include a spike in deaths from flu last winter and increases in deaths from chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, strokes and suicide. Deaths from heart disease, the No. 1 killer of Americans, which had been declining until 2011, continued to level off.

Deaths from cancer continued their long, steady, downward trend.

In a third report, the government detailed the ongoing growth of deaths from suicide, which has climbed steadily since 1999 and grown worse since 2006.

Joshua M. Sharfstein, vice dean for public health practice and community engagement at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Life expectancy is improving in many places in the world. It shouldn’t be declining in the United States."

Sharfstein said the most lamentable aspect of the crises is that policymakers know which approaches make a difference, such as medically assisted treatment for drug abusers and increased availability of mental health services in states where they are lacking.

"So the frustration that many of us feel is that there are things that could save many lives," he said, "and we are failing to make those services available."​

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...8604ed88993_story.html?utm_term=.b2d70595fbc2

 

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Your solution? No need to be shy, we'll get to the final truth eventually.

 

The first step to a solution, before you can do anything else, is recognizing a problem exists.
Not everyone is able to agree on that, at least that's what I've found in the past.

 

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A significant proportion of those dying from disease states are dying from diseases precipitated by poor lifestyle choices. Obesity, NIDDM (Type 2 Diabetes), high fat diets, smoking, alcohol abuse, etc.

 

And as such, no solution will be found. When people refuse to consider the cause, there is no possibility of effecting a solution.

 

The first step is recognizing there is a problem. The second step is agreeing on the cause.

Fair enough, but sometimes lifestyle choices are actually a slow form of suicide.
(People aren't being healthy because they just don't care, because their life circumstances are so dismal)

I think we can still draw a connection between increasing lifestyle choice-caused deaths and the suicide rate.

 

1) that was my point. the bleeding heart types don't want anyone pointing out the cause/s. they want to continue to pretend that it's some kind of external impost upon 'innocent people'. they will never agree on the cause, IOW.

2) obese/alcoholic/smoking people aren't healthy because they are impulsive. I guarantee they 'care'. they cling to life just as surely as the super fit, when lying in hospital beds. they simply think like children, and choose to pretend there are no consequences when faced with temptation. it's like people shopping on credit they can't repay. they too, care VERY much, once creditors start chasing them, but they're so determined to have gratification upfront, that all of that's pushed aside. this childlike thinking is a direct result of generations of safety and food security. we don't have to really fight to survive, so we don't. we indulge ourselves and regress. rather than it being a symptom of a 'dismal' life, it's actually a symptom of a far too good life.

 

I really think the issue is how much of the responsibility and blame can you really pin on these people.
I know it's a two-way street. A combination of external factors and personal decisions.

The truth is probably somewhere between the Conservative and Liberal perspectives.

 

You haven't said anything. If you think there is a problem, use it to refer to your perceived economic solution. If you don't think there is a problem, don't type. Nice and easy really!

 

Ending prayer in school causing all the ills in society dates further back than this.

 

Despite being an atheist, I miss saying the Lord's Prayer. Encouraged civility so it did. I've gone astray since. Of course I also welcome that!

 

That you think there is someone stopping you, is moar your issue than God's.

 

I'm thinking this is in Latin. It helps me feel positive.

 

Only from memory, but I'm pretty close here, by 2005 amongst the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, the casualties from suicide exceeded the casualties from hostile fire.

I think that provides some measure of insight into suicide rates.

 

I would be curious whether the rate of suicides was higher for soldiers that left the military (and were entering into an unfriendly job market), rather than those that stayed in the military.

Doing some quick research, it seems that hypothesis bears out.

Suicide Risk and Risk of Death Among Recent Veterans

Among deployed and non-deployed active duty Veterans who served during the Iraq or Afghanistan wars between 2001 and 2007, the rate of suicide was greatest the first three years after leaving service, according to a study.

Compared to the U.S. population, both deployed and non-deployed Veterans had a higher risk of suicide, but a lower risk of death from other causes combined. Deployed Veterans also had a lower risk of suicide compared to non-deployed Veterans.

These findings are from a study that looked at the vital status of 1.3 million Veterans from their time of discharge through the end of 2009.
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https://www.publichealth.va.gov/epidemiology/studies/suicide-risk-death-risk-recent-veterans.asp

They link has a graph that shows that the suicide rate of non-deployed veterans is 61% higher than the general US population, while the suicide rate of deployed veterans is only 41% higher.

(From the US Department of Veteran's Health website)


related articles:
study finds no link between military deployments and suicide

Historic data on military suicide shows no clear link with combat operations

Contrary to public assumptions, increased combat operations do not lead to more military suicides and may actually result in fewer troops engaging in self-harm, according to a new analysis of historic Defense Department data.

The results show an increase in suicide rates among soldiers during the Vietnam War and the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but decreases during the U.S. Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II and the Korean War.
During the height of World War II, suicide rates in the Army were up to three times lower the rate in the 1930s, during a period of peacetime. Suicide rates rose slowly from the end of that war to the start of the Korean War, then dropped significantly again as those combat operations increased.
"Historical data suggests that combat and increased rates of suicide do not appear to be associated, but may be affected by a host of other factors," the study states.

More recent research has shown that the suicide rate among individuals who served during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is not higher for troops or veterans who saw combat than for those who did not.​

'A national emergency': suicide rate spikes among young US veterans

The suicide rate was 1.5 times greater for veterans than for adults who never served in the military, even after adjusting for age and gender.​

It is well known that it is difficult for military personnel to make the transition into a career in the civilian job market.

The unemployment rate for recent veterans is incredibly high

The jobless rate for all U.S. veterans was just 6.9 percent in October — slightly lower than it is for the population as a whole.

But the unemployment rate for veterans who have served since 9/11 stood at 10 percent, with 246,000 out of work. That's the same rate as it was a year ago, and it's a higher jobless rate than it is for non-veterans, after adjusting for age and demographic factors. ​

Washington Post article, November 2013​

 

That's exactly what they do, yes. The very problems they create, they then try to 'fix' with more of the same.

But please don't call them liberals. They're nothing of the sort.

 

An interesting statistic on PTSD ... officers succumb much less frequently. They could be exposed to exactly the same stressor as the enlisted man who was impacted horribly, but come away clean.

 

I wonder how many suicides involve leaving a note explaining why the person committed suicide? I wonder how many failed suicide attempts are discussed post facto? How many suicides are explained by statements from the person involved?

Likely small numbers.

NYT and Military Times are essentially mainstream propaganda outlets. Maybe some of their stories have no bias, but I'm skeptical because of their behavior over years.

 

imo any society that buys into post-modernism or globalism is asking for problems.

After WWII the corporations seemed to understand that damn near everybody had a hand in American survival and in the defeat of Hitler and Hirohito, and that everyone should reap the benefits.

DuPont, for instance, built a lot of plants near small towns in flyover country, and offered good wages, as did most other major corporations. They spread the wealth and opportunity around.

After Nixon went to China things started going to Hell with American plants closing and the jobs going to China, then after NAFTA with plants closing with the machinery and jobs shipped to Mexico. The working class Americans no longer counted.

If you were born in flyover country and want to stay there many of your fellow citizens and the corporations want to starve you out, minimalizing you as rednecks and hicks that do not count and should not eat. Really nobody should be surprised by this reality.

But I guess it's just Darwin at work to ensure that the strong will survive and the weak will perish. All you can do is face that and survive unless you can change the game politically and get back a national mindset that working people count and Americans everywhere should have good jobs again.

Work is not punishment. Without work a human being has no purpose in life.

 

What on earth has post-modernism got to do with this?

 

Subjectivism and relativism are thrown into thinking, while objectivism and common sense are thrown out.

 

There is no truth. That's common sense in itself. But heck, let's see if you'd like to refer to an empirical link with suicide. Try not to go with spurious link...

 

That's what Pontius Pilate asked. John 18:38

I take it you're a full blown atheist.

Isn't it interesting that so many seemingly non-related issues come back to religion & philosophical worldview?

 

Religion has accepted pluralism for yonks. The fundamentalists that haven't are strikingly similar to the market fundamentalists worshipped by the cretinous right.