The Daily Mail – Deaths from alcohol, suicide and drug overdoses reached an all-time high in the US in 2017, according to a new report. Called “deaths of despair,” they have been deemed a national crisis, and a “regional epidemic” by the Commonwealth Fund which released its annual report on Wednesday.
Rates of these deaths have climbed across the nation, but the mid-Atlantic states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, have been struck hardest by drug overdoses, driven by the ongoing opioid epidemic.
Since 2005, alcohol-related deaths have increased by 37-percent, the national rate of suicide has risen by 28-percent and drug overdose deaths have more than doubled, surging by 115-percent in just 12 years.
