According to a UNM Health Sciences Center press release, a study of U.S. mortality data by researchers at the National Cancer Institute, the UNM College of Nursing and others has found that premature death rates actually rose for whites and American Indians and Alaska Natives between 1999 and 2014, and these disparities are growing.

According to the press release, the increase is due largely to drug overdoses, alcohol-related deaths, and suicide, the study found it also parallels the rise in heroin and opioid use over the last two decades.

While Improvements in diagnosing and treating chronic killers like cancer and heart disease have lowered death rates for adults under age 65 in this century, this doesn’t apply to all ethnic groups, according to the press release. Although the increase in premature deaths among white Americans was widely reported last year, the researchers wanted to investigate health disparities among Native Americans.

According to the press release, lead researcher Meredith S. Shiels of the National Cancer Institute called on Emily A. Haozous, a Native researcher and associate professor in the UNM College of Nursing, to help.

For the study, the researchers looked more closely at cause-of-death data from the National Center for Health Statistics, coupled with census data for the period 1999-2014, according to the press release. While they expected disparities across demographic groups, researchers were stunned to find American Indians and Native Alaskans had the highest mortality across all age groups in the period 2011-2014, after the highest increases in mortality for most age groups from the period 1999-2002. 

According to the press release, while most other ethnic groups saw premature death rates fall, thanks to improvements in prevention and treatment of cancer, heart disease and HIV, such declines were not seen in the Native American groups, where heart disease deaths actually increased.

Haozous, who is Fort Sill Apache and studies Native health trends, said the reasons are “complicated and political,” related partly to inadequate funding for the Indian Health Service, according to the press release, which faces a “heartbreaking” prognosis under current plans to scrap the Affordable Care Act.

According to the press release, three-quarters of Native Americans live in urban areas and lack adequate access to care.

Overall, black Americans showed the greatest improvements in premature death rates, and premature mortality has likewise fallen for Hispanics and Asian-Pacific Islanders across all age groups since 1999, thanks largely to declines in smoking and medical advances in treating chronic diseases, according to the press release.

According to the press release, for young and middle-aged whites, as well as the Native American groups, any such improvements have been canceled out by the rise in drug overdoses, alcohol-related deaths and suicides, with the largest increases seen in young adults, age 25 to 30, especially women, and in regions such as West Virginia and Kentucky for whites.

“Mental health is a place where the whole population needs to address this problem,” Haozous is quoted as saying in the press release. “I really hope this study will lead to not only more research, but action.”

According to the press release, increases of 2 to 5 percent per year in death rates, as seen among younger whites and Native Americans, are “exceedingly rare” in developed countries outside emergencies such as the AIDS epidemic, the researchers noted.

While, in Canada, England and Wales, premature death rates declined steadily over the study period, U.S. drug overdose deaths have more than doubled since 2000, and the United States now leads the world in per-capita use of prescription opioids.

Matthew Reisen is the news editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @MReisen88.