eAlert Fri, 01/29/2016 - 12:00 9e6abf9b-c213-429c-a23f-21e42930c10c

<p>A lack of progress since 1999 against common illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, and respiratory disease was largely responsible for higher-than-expected death rates for middle-aged white adults in 2014, a new Commonwealth Fund study finds.</p><p>While substance abuse and suicide rates increased during the same period, they did not increase enough to explain why death rates for this group have deviated from their historical decline. </p>
<p>The study, by The Commonwealth Fund’s David Squires and David Blumenthal, M.D., also looked at whites’ higher-than-expected death rates on a state-by-state basis. Trends in the South are particularly worrisome: in West Virginia, for example, whites between ages 45 and 54 are dying at the highest rates seen since 1980. </p>

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/ealerts/2016/jan/mortality-brief Read the study