High Death Rates Among Middle-Aged Americans Reveals Issues in US Healthcare

Death rate in middle-aged White Americans caused due to sluggish heart disease and common illness processes are on the rise. The crisis is now a big cause of concern for the policymakers and the health care officials.

The latest report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed that the reason death rates failed to decline as expected was not entirely due to suicide and substance abuse. Although those factors explained about 40% of the gap, the rest was attributable to the leading causes of death-things like heart disease, diabetes, and respiratory disease.

‘Poor medical systems and the huge changes in the economy may be the cause for increase in the death rate among middle-aged white Americans.’

After increased rising toll of deaths caused due to suicide and drug abuse the high mortality rate has become the core focus recently. However, a recent report from a New York-based Commonwealth Fund reveals that drugs and suicide are only partial responsible. "We are accustomed to making progress against diseases. We learn how to prevent them and how to treat them, and as we do that, fewer people die from them," said Dr. David Blumenthal, a co-author of the study and president of the fund. "For middle-aged whites, that progress has stalled and even reversed for some conditions. We need to find out why this is happening."

The evidence regarding the troublesome life expectancy trends in the United States suggests that several men and women had died much younger than their counterparts a generation ago.

Source: Medindia