Report: ‘Deaths of Despair’ Spiking Upward Nationally

An empty chair remains amidst used and discarded drug paraphernalia that litters the streets of Philadelphia as an epidemic crisis of "deaths of despair" grows incrementally on a national scale in America. (Washington Post photo)

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.

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