U.S. Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson: Working-age Americans are dying younger
For all the remarkable advancements in health care in our great nation, the number of Americans dying in the prime of life has steadily increased during the past half-century, according to a bracing new study surveying causes of mortality. Those impacted include people from all racial groups as well as residents of the nation’s metropolitan and rural areas.
Ironically, the study seems to suggest that residents of remote rural stretches as well as inner-city America at last have a common challenge, one that should be aggressively scrutinized and addressed by their elected representatives.
Among causes of premature death were heart disease, stroke, suicide, drug overdoses, alcoholism and pulmonary disease, according to the report, “Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the United States, 1959-2017,” published recently in JAMA, voice of the highly regarded American Medical Association. One striking finding: Unlike every other wealthy country in the world, we’re moving the wrong way in longevity. People between ages 25 and 64 now die at higher rates due to health problems aggravated by opioid addiction, obesity, alcoholism and suicide.
And then there’s this from Ellen Meara, a professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice: “There’s something more fundamental about how people are feeling at some level — whether it’s economic, whether it’s stress, whether it’s deterioration of family. People are feeling worse about themselves and their futures, and that’s leading them to do things that are self-destructive and not promoting health.”
Read more: https://www.wacotrib.com/opinion/columns/guest_columns/eddie-bernice-johnson-working-age-americans-are-dying-younger/article_f6c2bb98-94d4-5039-95be-b5c47766e8b8.html
(Waco Tribune-Herald)
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