Within this academic paper, it is explained that building on earlier research (Case and Deaton, 2015), it is found that mortality and morbidity among white non-Hispanic Americans in midlife since the turn of the century continued to climb through 2015. Also, additional increases in drug overdoses, suicides, and alcohol-related liver mortality— particularly among those with a high school degree or less—are responsible for an overall increase in all-cause mortality among whites. These types of deaths were coined 'Deaths of Despair'. 

The paper proposes a preliminary but plausible story in which cumulative disadvantage from one birth cohort to the next—in the labor market, in marriage and child outcomes, and in health—is triggered by progressively worsening labor market opportunities at the time of entry for whites with low levels of education.