‘Deaths of Despair’ contribute to 17% rise in Minnesota’s death rate during COVID-19 pandemic

According to a new study published by Mayo Clinic researchers, the COVID-19 pandemic was linked to a 17% increase in the death rate in Minnesota during the first year of the pandemic compared to the two previous years.

Upward trend in ‘deaths of despair’ linked to drop in religious participation, economist finds

Over the past 20 years, the death rate from drug poisonings in the U.S. has tripled and suicide and alcoholic liver disease death rates have increased by 30 percent — particularly among middle-aged white Americans. Daniel Hungerman, professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame, and his co-authors studied the connection between a sharp downturn of religious participation in the late 1980s and the swift rise in these “deaths of despair” among white Americans ages 45 to 54 in the early 1990s.