Image | Journal of the American Medical Association
Rising rates of drug overdoses, diabetes, suicide and other afflictions have led to rising mortality rates nationally.
November 27, 2019
People are dying younger in Massachusetts
Photo | Flickr | K-State Research and Extension
By Grant Welker
The mortality rate in Massachusetts has risen 12.1% since 2010, the 13th highest such increase in the country, a startling increase due in large part to the opioid epidemic and a rising suicide rate.
New mortality-rate data released Tuesday in a report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows a widespread health problem across the United States, with all but two states showing a mortality rate increase, a sign of unexpected deaths.
Massachusetts still has among the better mortality rates in the country, ranking eighth with 291.8 premature deaths per 100,000 people each year. The state's rising mortality rate has brought an estimated 1,155 extra deaths from 2010 to 2017, according to the study.
[Related: Worcester pharmacies stocked 49 million opioids in years leading up to crisis]
The mortality rate in 2017 was the highest since 2003, when it was 306.2.
Tuesday's report didn't specify the specific reasons behind any state's rising premature deaths, but pointed to major causes including drug overdoses, diabetes, heart disease, alcohol-related liver disease — most of which are rising, leading to a drop in the American life expectancy following decades of improvement.
Massachusetts had more than 2,000 opioid-related deaths in each of the past three years, up from just 375 in 2000, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The state's broader drug overdose rate more than quadrupled in less than 20 years, placing it ninth nationally in 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The state's suicide rate — 10 per 100,000 in the most recent three-year period — rose 35% from 1999 to 2016, among the sharpest increases nationally during that time, CDC data shows.
[Related: Suicide rates up sharply in Massachusetts, nationally]
Despite the discouraging data in the Journal of the American Medical Association report, a state Department of Public Health report last December showed the state's life expectancy rate breaking a national downward trend, rising to 80 years and eight months in 2016. Nationwide, the life expectancy was 78 years and seven months.
Image | Journal of the American Medical Association
Since 2010, all but two states have seen an increase in their mortality rate, a measure of unexpected deaths.
The Massachusetts life expectancy rate peaked in 2012 and 2013 at 80 years and 11 months.
Like Massachusetts, New England has among the nation's best mortality rates, ranking second out of nine regions in the report, behind only the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii. But the region's 13% mortality rate increase since 2010 is the highest in the country.
Nationwide, the mortality rate rose 6%, representing an extra 33,307 deaths in the eight years ending in 2017.
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