Native Americans Left Out of ‘Deaths of Despair’ Research

February 1, 2023

(NPR) – For more than a decade, Americans have been dying younger than people in other developed countries. Researchers attribute much of this rise in mid-life deaths to what are called “deaths of despair” — that is suicides, drug overdoses and deaths from alcoholic liver disease — among middle-aged white Americans. But a study published last week in The Lancet shows that these premature deaths have affected American Indian and Alaska Native communities far more than white communities. (Read More)