ArticleInternational journal of epidemiology2018
Explaining recent mortality trends among younger and middle-aged White Americans.
Article in International journal of epidemiology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 80 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed, 143 citations in OpenAlex.
- A growing socioeconomic divide: Effects of the Great Recession on perceived economic distress in the United States.PloS one · 2019Trial
- Melanocortin receptor 4 agonist setmelanotide treats opioid-induced respiratory depression.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Mortality Trends in the United States due to Concurrent Heart Failure, Atrial Fibrillation/Flutter, and Sepsis.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Educational Disparities in Disability in Mid- to Late-Life: How Much is Attributable to Pain?Journal of aging and health · 2026Article
- National trends, disparities and forecasts in substance use disorder-related suicide mortality in the United States: a CDC WONDER analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Mortality Trends in the United States due to Concurrent Heart Failure, Atrial Fibrillation/Flutter and Sepsis.Cardiology and cardiovascular medicine · 2026Article
- Spatially Continuous Maps of Disease Risk: An Analysis of Mortality Disparities in the United States.AJPM focus · 2025Article
- Shifting Cohort Patterns in the Use of Drugs with Elevated Overdose Risk in the United States.Social problems · 2025Article
- Age, period, and cohort trends of substance poisoning, alcohol-related disease, and suicide deaths in Australia, 1980-2019.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Observational
- Educational inequalities in deaths of despair in 14 OECD countries: a cross-sectional observational study.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2025Observational
- The Role of Despair in Predicting Self-Destructive Behaviors.Population research and policy review · 2025Article
- Ten Americas: a systematic analysis of life expectancy disparities in the USA.Lancet (London, England) · 2024Article
- Faltering mortality improvements at young-middle ages in high-income English-speaking countries.International journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Cohort Differences in Physical Health and Disability in the United States and Europe.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2024Article
- Projecting the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on U.S. population structure.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Reevaluating the "deaths of despair" narrative: Racial/ethnic heterogeneity in the trend of psychological distress-related death.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- US exceptionalism? International trends in midlife mortality.International journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Generational differences in physical health and disability in the United States and Europe.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- County-level factors associated with a mismatch between opioid overdose mortality and availability of opioid treatment facilities.PloS one · 2024Article
- Daily exposure to stressors, daily perceived severity of stress, and mortality risk among US adults.PloS one · 2024Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Background: Recent research has suggested that increases in mortality among middle-aged US Whites are being driven by suicides and poisonings from alcohol and drug use. Increases in these 'despair' deaths have been argued to reflect a cohort-based epidemic of pain and distress among middle-aged US Whites. Methods: We examine trends in all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates among younger and middle-aged US White men and women between 1980 and 2014, using official US mortality data. We estimate trends in cause-specific mortality from suicides, alcohol-related deaths, drug-related deaths, 'metabolic diseases' (i.e. deaths from heart diseases, diabetes, obesity and/or hypertension), and residual deaths from extrinsic causes (i.e. causes external to the body). We examine variation in mortality trends by gender, age and cause of death, and decompose trends into period- and cohort-based variation. Results: Trends in middle-aged US White mortality vary considerably by cause and gender. The relative contribution to overall mortality rates from drug-related deaths has increased dramatically since the early 1990s, but the contributions from suicide and alcohol-related deaths have remained stable. Rising mortality from drug-related deaths exhibit strong period-based patterns. Declines in deaths from metabolic diseases have slowed for middle-aged White men and have stalled for middle-aged White women, and exhibit strong cohort-based patterns. Conclusions: We find little empirical support for the pain- and distress-based explanations for rising mortality in the US White population. Instead, recent mortality increases among younger and middle-aged US White men and women have likely been shaped by the US opiate epidemic and an expanding obesogenic environment.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.