The Epidemic of Despair

Will America’s Mortality Crisis Spread to the Rest of the World?

By Anne Case and Angus Deaton

“When it comes to deaths of despair, the United States is hopefully less a bellwether than a warning, an example for the rest of the world of what to avoid,”Anne Case and Angus Deaton write in our upcoming March/April issue. But there are genuine reasons for concern that deaths caused by drugs, alcohol, and suicide may also rise elsewhere: “The dynamic that has helped fuel the U.S. crisis—of elites prospering while less educated workers get left behind—may produce similar devastating results in other wealthy countries.”

Read more from Foreign Affairs on health in the United States and across the world:

"How to Fix American Health Care" by William C. Hsiao
"Opioids of the Masses: Stopping an American Epidemic From Going Global" by Keith Humphreys, Jonathan P. Caulkins, and Vanda Felbab-Brown
"China Can’t Solve America’s Fentanyl Problem"
by Bryce Pardo and Peter Reuter
"How to Prepare for a Coronavirus Pandemic"
by Tom Inglesby
"To Cure Ebola Will Take More Than a Pill" by Laura Seay
"Health Without Wealth: The Worrying Paradox of Modern Medical Miracles" by Thomas J. Bollyky

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