November 3, 2015

"Why is US death rate rising for white, middle-aged?"

"National data sets from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention... show that middle-aged whites are committing suicide at an unrivalled rate... But why are whites so much more likely to commit suicide than other demographic groups?"
... [R]esearchers found increased numbers of declining self-reported health, mental health and ability to work. Middle-aged whites reported problems with walking a quarter of a mile, climbing 10 steps, standing or sitting for two hours, shopping and socialising — some of which are risk factors for suicide."

49 comments:

chickelit said...

It's probably all the internet inactivity.

M Jordan said...

I am the second person to comment on this post. It read, "1 comments."

Comments? Why can't the programmer write a simple If/Then line like, "If the number is 1, don't add an 's'"? It's not that hard, really.

Just bugs me, a recreational programmer (yes, it's true).

MadisonMan said...

I blame Obama.

PB said...

Second that, MadisoanMan.

Humperdink said...

WLDM.

MadisonMan said...

White Middle-Aged Male Lives Matter!!

Fortunately, I've just aged out of the demographic they discuss in that article )phew(

So I'm safe.

Rob said...

It makes sense. When I have to sit for more than two hours on an airplane, I want to kill myself.

Bob Ellison said...

I blame global warming.

Humperdink said...

WhiteLivesDon'tMatter

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

As a "white, middle-aged" (a white, middle-aged what?), I don't have any problems walking, climbing, standing, sitting, shopping, or socializing. I do nearly all of the above daily on the (25 min. each way, very hilly) trip to the grocery store. All the same, I have the identical depression I always have this time of year. Until I moved to OR, I didn't think seasonal affective disorder was a real thing. Oh, it is.

The Godfather said...

What am I missing? The "white" line on the graph shows a trivial increase in mortality between 1999 and 2013, which almost disappears if you start with 2002.

SteveR said...

Middle aged white males (me included) are increasingly unneeded and irrelevant. Started with the dumbing down of TV dads (e.g. Married With Children) etc. and now its expended to include blame for all the wrongs everywhere. So in addition to being stupid racists, we're weak and suicidal. Good times, all in all.

Scott said...

It's hard being a man.

Deirdre Mundy said...

The Godfather-- if you break it out by education/economics, the people with only high school degrees or less are actually driving the increase.... and their death rate increased ALOT.

Michael K said...

Fortunately, I survived middle age in spite of various attempts to impede that.

Derp said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The Godfather said...

@Dierdre Mundy: Yes I saw that the chart shows that mortality is increasing among less-educated (and presumably poorer) whites. This must mean that mortality is decreasing among better educated whites, because the overall white mortality isn't changing much. That, however, doesn't seem to be the agenda that the article is pushing. A headline that says "Poor people aren't doing as well as non-poor people" wouldn't attract many readers, I guess.

walter said...

Only so much privilege one can take...

jr565 said...

I bet it's largely white liberal atheists killing themselves. Because they've painted themselves into a corner with existentialism. They have nothing in this life but ennui and loneliness. Rounded with a sleep.
And now they are worm food.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

May I point out that the article doesn't in fact break out men vs. women? There may very well be much higher suicide rates among men than among women (in fact, I'd practically guarantee it; 5:1 or so is the usual ratio), but it doesn't actually say that. It's about racial and not gender cohorts.

Do you think that it's basically white men killing themselves? Or is there a concomitant risk wrt white women?

Wince said...

Blogger Deirdre Mundy said...
[White middle aged] people with only high school degrees or less are actually driving the increase.... and their death rate increased ALOT.

WhiteTrashLivesMatter?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Some Whites still have a sense of responsibility? Except for some Asian cohorts who else feels ashamed and depressed about not being able to provide for themselves and their families?

Jane the Actuary said...

Just finished writing about this; this is rather unsettling data because deaths due to suicide and substance abuse causes are increasing at a rather fast clip, especially for those with low education; for a couple years in the early 2000s this caused a significant net increase in this age group across all deaths; since then it's leveled off, but it really should have been declining.

And, yes, suicide rates are vastly higher among men than women; in fact, more men commit suicide than women die of breast cancer (if you exclude the elderly), and yet it's breast cancer that has a whole, pink month devoted to it. But the report doesn't split by sex, even though you'd think this would be a key data point, and I don't quite understand why not.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/janetheactuary/2015/11/about-that-midlife-mortality-report.html

Sebastian said...

Must be due to interruptions in the supply of Viagra.

BN said...

People who are not depressed don't understand those who are.

And vice versa.

It's kinda funny, huh?

I have pondered about the percentage of people who would commit suicide in a different world where there was no social stigma and no collateral pain upon loved ones, and where one could just flip off the switch as if deciding, I don't want to get out of bed today, I don't want my heart to beat anymore. How many would do that?

That's kinda funny, huh?

BN said...

"But the report doesn't split by sex... and I don't quite understand why not."

That's easy. Doesn't fit the "war on women" narrative.

BN said...

But there are plenty of female suicides, it's just that more females seem to be unsuccessful. I'd like to see the relative stats on attempts, but I'm too lazy to look them up.

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Quaestor said...

Women and girls attempt suicide much more often then they finish the job. They do it mainly to psychologically manipulate their "loved one." The female suicide attempt is usually done in such a manner and/or location that the perp is likely to be discovered and rescued. Preferred methods are slow, not very painful, and usually reversible if discovered in time; drug overdoses and wrist slitting are popular among women and girls for that reason.

Men who attempt suicide usually succeed. They choose a time and place which minimizes the chance of discovery and intervention. They prefer methods that are as assuredly and instantly lethal as their mean allow -- firearms, hangings, and lethal falls are the most popular in this country. Men kill themselves for two reasons primarily: despair and devotion.

Mark said...

Addressing these suicides might make people consider the role of guns in male suicide.

We can't do that, as even a waiting period is too much for most firearms supporters. Suicide is an acceptable risk according to them.

SJ said...

@Mark,

while there is a correlation between gun laws and the rate of suicide-by-guns, I don't know if there is a correlation between gun laws and rates of suicide.

After all, a person can buy a rope at Home Depot, but need to pass a background check to get a gun from Gander Mountain.

(About the correlation between gun laws and suicide-by-guns: some data here. Look at all three graphs.)

I also don't know if most suicides-by-gun purchase a gun specifically to shoot themselves with.

If they already own a gun, it is very hard for a waiting period to change the possibility of suicide.

Mark said...

SJ, do you think commenters here would believe a study that showed it increased suicide?

Based on what I see week in and week out, nope.

Paco Wové said...

Everybody's hobby horses getting a good workout this morning.

Brando said...

This should be great news for those who complain of inequality--finally, white men are catching up to their black male counterparts!

Of course both groups are dying off at a far greater clip than women, but then this was never about inequality, was it?

damikesc said...

White, middle-aged MEN.

That American society is viciously anti-male is a large reason. That nobody seems to legitimately give a shit is also telling.

If it was women killing themselves, we'd have media reports, gnashing of teeth, and Congressional investigations into the problem.

But it's men. We don't matter too much.

SJ, do you think commenters here would believe a study that showed it increased suicide?

Based on what I see week in and week out, nope.


Given the sheer volume of bullshit in "scientific studies" these days, that seems to be a problem for science.

Brando said...

"We can't do that, as even a waiting period is too much for most firearms supporters. Suicide is an acceptable risk according to them."

I don't think "most" firearms "supporters" oppose waiting periods. What a lot of us have problems with is laws preventing us from carrying a licensed firearm to protect ourselves in places where we are more likely to be in danger (i.e., when traveling through dangerous neighborhoods).

Availability of guns do make suicides more likely in cases where the suicidal impulse is temporary (just as having a high bridge nearby without safety fences can do so). But it's hard to see how any currently proposed "gun control" policy (e.g., the idiotic "gun show loophole" or "assault weapons ban" policies) would have any effect on preventing suicides or gun deaths at all.

If you favor completely banning and confiscating guns, that's one thing--a thing that simply cannot be accomplished, but at least in that utopia gun violence would be reduced. But these piecemeal approaches are just useless signalling to show other leftists that you have the right sort of thinking.

Brando said...

"But it's men. We don't matter too much."

That's because men are busy using their male privilege to work longer hours, die younger, end up more likely to go to prison, suffer violence, lose custody of their children and suffer discrimination in the courts. Which seems an odd way to use one's privilege, but men are complicated that way.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Suicide rate soars for middle-age white males.

Women and children hardest hit.

Tank said...

Mark said...

Addressing these suicides might make people consider the role of guns in male suicide.

The knee jerk impulse to seize on any opportunity to minimize or eliminate the right to defend oneself and one's family from harm utilizing the best tool for the job.

Rusty said...

Ignorance is Bliss said...
Suicide rate soars for middle-age white males.

Women and children hardest hit.


And those are the one I'm blaming.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

WSJ: Many people are reaching midlife short of a cornerstone of the American dream: making more money than their parents did. Average hourly wages in real terms were $19.18 in 1964 and $20.67 in 2014, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited by the Pew Research Center. Median real household incomes for whites with a high-school education have fallen since the late 1990s, Ms. Case said.

These people are the sons and daughters of the Reagan Democrats who voted against their economic interests.

Bruce Hayden said...

The problem with most waiting periods is that often when you first go out to buy a gun, it is because you need it now. Not a week from now, or even a couple of days from now, but now. That is what happened with me - a partner assaulted me. I called the cops to have him arrested. He then took to driving by my house slowly. Which ended when he saw me racking a shell into my newly purchased shot gun. Those pushing waiting periods aren't playing with their own lives, but are, instead are sacrificing those who are in imminent danger of death, rape, etc for some people who might not commit suicide if they can't immediately buy a firearm. The latter group being limited mostly to guys who can't think up another way to off themselves. I would say to the gun grabbers trying to delay people who want to prevent me (or others) from defending ourselves from known risks of death or great bodily injury that it isn't their call. The right to keep and bear arms, and the associated right of self defense are fundamental rights. That means, at a minimum, that any such balancing tests, which the delays essentially are, are prohibited as both immoral and contrary to our Constitution.

Bruce Hayden said...

If there is a problem here, I think that the pink ribbons and pink month point towards the basic problem - males are expendable, and women tend to be self-indulgent and narcissistic. I think that there are sound evolutionary reasons behind that, but it sucks to be in the expendable category. As probably a majority here are.

Maybe it is the ethos, but in MT, at least western MT, they are trying to make pink month and ribbons mean defeating all cancers, male or female, and not just one that almost always just strikes women. I have a much easier time contributing to a cause that is not so extremely sexually biased against me. But note how Infrequently this extreme sexual bias is pointed out when we are exhorted so strongly to support this cause. And people wonder why men are dying off so much more rapidly than women.

Jason said...

Some years ago, I read a terrific book by William Greider called Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs The Country.

The title sounds conspiratorial, but it was really just an economic history of the country during the Volker Era at the Fed under Carter and Reagan. Naturally the recession of 1981 to1982 was a major part of it, and economic liberals such as Jude Wanniski were quick to point out that the recession caused a sharp increase in suicides. Reaganomics, they said, had a body count, and monetarism vs Keynesianism was literally killing people.

Now that a liberal is in the White House, though, and we have a similar increase in suicides among people who should be breadwinners in their peak earning years (who have woken up under Obama to find their life insurance policies are worth far more to their families than their future earnings prospects), liberals can't imagine why it's happening.

It's a fucking mystery.

Unknown said...

There are several components that are contributing, and listening to different media I have heard many of these expressed. One that has been avoided but would have been claimed as THE cause if this were the black or hispanic community is racism.

Is it that when a black person views their life as a failure, they are told it is not their fault, the deck was stacked against them; but a white person is just a loser? This line of reasoning may be just BS, but it is unPC to even ask these questions.

Drago said...

The Godfather: "What am I missing? The "white" line on the graph shows a trivial increase in mortality between 1999 and 2013, which almost disappears if you start with 2002."

You obviously did not have an article due on deadline that you had to generate.

Drago said...

ARM: "These people are the sons and daughters of the Reagan Democrats who voted against their economic interests."

LOL

Perfect in so very many ways.

Michael said...

Gee, middle aged lower middle class white males are the only people in our society who can be disrespected with impunity, and all the fancy people take full advantage of the opportunity. The achievements of an average guy who holds a job and supports a family are denigrated, while alternative life styles are celebrated and subsidized. The problems of women and minorities are officially not their fault, while the white guys have no one to blame but themselves and have to listen to lectures about their "privilege." They'd get more respect if they were homeless. I can't imagine why they would find this depressing.

Derp said...

I read a terrific book by William Greider called Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs The Country.

That was a great book and permanently changed the way I look at economics.