For a time, the increase in the deaths of despair flew under the radar because we were continuing to make progress against heart disease. So our progress against heart disease was the engine for overall mortality progress in the last third of the 20th century and into the new century. But sadly, that progress stopped cold around 2010 for people without a bachelor’s degree. And before we move on, I just want to make note of the fact that that decade-long decline in life expectancy for people without a B.A. from 2010 to 2020, when life expectancy was moving in different directions for these groups, that’s almost unheard of in modern times. The only other place that that was seen was in Eastern Europe just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, which gives you some sense of the company that the U.S. is currently keeping.
