Young and Middle-Aged Adults are Dying More Often

Insurers in the United States have picked up on a stark new epidemiological trend: young and middle-aged adults are dying more often than before.

What insurers call “excess mortality” – the number of people dying – was elevated during and in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The rate was expected to normalise since, but that hasn’t happened.

Among Americans aged over 65, the mortality rate has actually dropped by 6% since the pandemic. This is perhaps a case of survivorship bias in the wake of the 2020-21 COVID death toll.

Whereas the elevated mortality rate is especially noticeable for 35 to 44 year-olds. Even in late 2022, the mortality rate for these people was one-third above pre-pandemic levels, and has only slightly subsided since.

COVID may play a role in the overall health picture. However, COVID deaths are down by 85% since the arrival of vaccines, and thus do not directly account for the statistical increase, according to the US Society of Actuaries.

Clues to the cause may lie in its distribution. Deaths are 14% above pre-pandemic levels among blue-collar workers, but 19% above pre-pandemic levels among white-collar workers.

One epidemiological analysis locates the cause in an ongoing societal trend among those born since the 1970s. “Each of the Anglophone populations [US, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ, Ireland] has experienced a marked mortality disadvantage for cohorts born since the early 1970s relative to the average of other [i.e., non-Anglophone] high-income countries.”

In Anglophone countries, mortality rates in older generations have slowly continued to reduce year on year. However, among young to middle-aged adults, the opposite is occurring. This is largely attributable to deaths of despair: suicide and substance abuse.

The worsening class and generation gap in wealth may be leaving those at the very bottom of the socio-economic ladder feeling with less to live for than their counterparts of previous generations. This combined with long-term health impacts on COVID survivors has made for a different social health picture than we are used to.