06/18/2021

Young American Adults Are Dying — and Not Just From COVID

More deaths are driven by guns and drugs

Nearly 19 percent more Americans died in 2020 than in 2019, according to data that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updates each week as more reports from state and local medical examiners trickle in (meaning that the 2020 numbers will keep rising although likely not by much).

This is the biggest such increase since 1918, when deaths rose 30 percent. Deadly pandemics will do that. In a chart of overall U.S. mortality rates since 1900, both years stand out as anomalies amid a trajectory of — if you adjust for the aging of the U.S. population — sustained decline.

The age-adjustment is needed because in 1900 just 1.7 percent of Americans were 65 or older and at present almost 17 percent are. By holding the population share of different age groups steady, one gets a better picture of the changing mortality risk over time.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Bloomberg.