Tuesday Funk, Nov 2015

Tuesday Funk is a reading series held every first Tuesday of the month at the Hopleaf bar in Chicago. It features writers from a range of genres, although fiction and memoir tend to be the most common, with about 4-5 people reading their work over the course of the evening. This month’s session introduced me to the fantastic Sarah Michael Hollenbeck, who also happens to be one of the co-owners of the Women and Children First bookstore.

Rise in mortality rates among white working class in the US

This morning several newspapers reported on a study by two economists from Princeton University into rising mortality rates among non-hispanic white men and women in the US since 1998. (Or to be more exact, the mortality rates have been decreasing everywhere, but the rate of that decrease has slowed to the point of stopping among this group).

The Guardian’s coverage, for instance, presents the study this way:

A sharp rise in death rates among white middle-aged Americans has claimed nearly as many lives in the past 15 years as the spread of Aids in the US, researchers have said.

The alarming trend, overlooked until now, has hit less-educated 45- to 54-year-olds the hardest, with no other groups in the US as affected and no similar declines seen in other rich countries.

Though not fully understood, the increased deaths are largely thought to be a result of more suicides and the misuse of drugs and alcohol, driven by easier access to powerful prescription painkillers, cheaper high quality heroin and greater financial stresses.