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New Documentation of U.S. Breakdown:
Death Rate Soaring for Mid-Age White Women, Rural Areas

April 2016

Age-adjusted Death Rate for Drug Poisoning by Race and Hispanic Origin, 2000-2014
All Ages, Both Sexes United States

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Heroin epidemic in the United States: In 2014, there were 47,055 deaths from drug overdoses. These data from the Centers for Disease Control tell part of the story.

April 11, 2016 (EIRNS)—Death rates for middle-age white women in rural areas have risen overall nearly 50 percent since 1990, and in certain poor counties by over 100 percent. For example, in rural Victoria County, Texas, for the age span of white women 35 to 54 years, the death rate is up 169 percent. In 1990, Victoria County had 216 deaths per 100,000 women group, and as of 2014, there were 583 deaths for the same group. This county leads the nation in this rise of death rate, but 21 other rural counties across the South and Midwest are similar.

This trend has been documented by a number of reports in recent years, as "regional" phenomena, focussed—as it was most manifest—on poor counties in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and other poverty areas. Now it is a national phenomenon.

Look the national trend since 1999, Obama’s first year in office. In 2000, there were 228 deaths per 100,000 rural white women in the age group nearing 50 years old; but now, 296 are dying at this age. Certain counties are death zones. In Walker County, Alabama, in the destroyed Appalachian coal country, the death rate of white women, age 35 to 44, is up 179 percent since 1999.

These are the headline findings of a mortality rate study issued by the Washington Post April 10 ("A New Divide in American Death"). The researchers looked at mortality records from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, by county, for the period 1990 to 2014, looking at cause of death, and the degree of urbanization. A number of breakdown trends are evident. For example, there has been a sharp rise in the overall death rate among young men, age 25 to 35; and of older white men, age 55 to 64.

But the most dramatic trend in mortality is, as presented on a Post nationwide map of counties, and its caption: "From 1990 though 2014, the mortality rate for white women rose in most parts of the country, particularly around small cities and in rural areas, where rates often went up more than 40 percent and some doubled."

This death trend reflects the shutdown of civilization across the rural countryside. There is not only poverty and suffering, but despair. No jobs. Towns are boarded up. Lodging is decrepit. Churches are shut. Water, power and sanitation are bad. Then add in the bestial "popular music," insane TV, and video games; and the drugs, alcohol, smoking, over-eating, violence, and illness.

Therefore, the biggest official factors for the increasing death rate among rural, white, middle-aged women are drug overdose, suicide, and cirrosis of the liver, related to heavy drinking.

In contrast, despite poverty, poor residents in certain urban areas are, comparatively, not showing a (statistical) drop in life expectancy. This is presented in a second new study out this week. Its documentation indicates that where there is a social setting that is potentially human for people, the death rate is measurably less, despite poverty.

New York City is listed as the number one place "where the poor live the longest,"—84.2 years (women) and 79.5 (men), in contrast to lesser towns and rural counties.

This study was published April 10, by the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) on-line, titled, "The Association Between Income and Life Expectancy in the United States, 2001-2014." It looked at life expectancy, related to level of income, for the period 1999 through 2014. Not surprisingly, the finding is that, "The Rich Live Longer Everywhere. For the Poor, Geography Matters," as the New York Times headline reported today.