Above: We first plot mortality rates for Americans nearing retirement ages by their month of birth, highlighting the sharpness of their departure from the trend set by previous cohorts. We show additionally how pervasive that departure is: We see it (i) among Black Americans just as we see it among White Americans; (ii) for both men and women; and (iii) in dense urban areas as well as rural parts of the country.
Link to working paper
Abstract
The high and rising rates of adult mortality in the United States relative to peer nations is now widely recognized as one of the most serious public health concerns facing the country. Researchers from multiple disciplines have posited many theories in efforts to explain the problem, yet a consensus explanation remains elusive. We depict the unprecedented stagnation in adult mortality as a “cohort malaise.” We first show that progress in adult mortality stops abruptly with Americans born in the summer of 1947, with no such trend break in other countries. We then look for differential severity by race, sex, and geography within the United States. What we find instead is remarkable pervasiveness, with the cohort break in mortality appearing across all of these demographics. Our conclusion is that successful theories of the malaise, now responsible for over a million excess deaths relative to trend, will demonstrate a distinctive “signature”: sudden cohort-by-cohort changes in the United States around the summer of 1947 that span race, sex, and geography.
Disclaimer: Any views expressed are those of the authors and not those of the U.S. Census Bureau. The Census Bureau has reviewed this data product to ensure appropriate access, use, and disclosure avoidance protection of the confidential source data used to produce this product. This research was performed at a Federal Statistical Research Data Center under FSRDC Project Number 2603. (CBDRB-FY25-P2603-R12039/12193/12447)