For the first time since the U.S. government began keeping records, the life expectancy for white women has declined, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics. The decline is slight -- from 81.2 to 81.1 years -- but worrisome.
While the report did not include causes of death, NPR reports that the author of the analysis, Elizabeth Arias, looked deeper and examined causes of death for white people over the last 15 years.
"For the age group 25 to 54, suicide went up," she told reporter Alison Kodjak. "'Unintentional poisonings,' which is mainly alcohol and drug poisoning, and chronic liver disease -- those went up by quite a bit."
The report was drawn from all deaths recorded in the U.S. in 2014. Life expectancy for whites overall dropped to 78.8 years in 2014 from 78.9 in 2013.
The New York Times details that life expectancy for whites had been going up for decades but stagnated more recently:
It inched up in 2010 and 2011, and was flat in 2012 and 2013.
Recent research has documented surprising increases in death rates among less educated whites. Last year, a paper by Anne Case and Angus Deaton documented rising death rates among middle-age white Americans, particularly those with no more than a high school education. Other research has found rising rates among younger whites.
The pattern had puzzled demographers, but the recent analyses have pointed to suffering and anxiety among working-class whites.
(For a powerful look at one tragedy, read this Washington Post story of the death of one 54-year-old woman in Tecumseh, Oklahoma.)