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The New Deaths of Despair in America – Among U.S. Children

The phenomenon of Deaths of Despair is the short-hand name for rising mortality among certainly people living in the U.S. due to overdose, accidents, and suicide. Angus Deaton and Anne Case published their first of many research papers on Deaths of Despair in 2015. Their research uncovered the risks of dying a Death of Despair to be higher among men, especially those between the ages of 25 and 64. But mortality isn’t only going in the wrong direction for those people most closely associated with the Deaths of Despair demographic: there’s another life-span line graph moving in the wrong direction,

 

The Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns for 2023 Are About Social, Mental and Behavioral Health

Ten years ago, ECRI named the top 10 health technology hazards  for 2013: they were alarm hazards, medication administrative errors using infusion pumps, unnecessary exposure and radiation burns from diagnostic radiology procedures, patient/data mismatches in EHRs and other HIT systems, interoperability failures with medical devices and health IT systems, and five other tech-related hazards. In 2014, ECRI pivoted the title of this annual report to “patient safety concerns,” a nuance away from health technology. Fast forward to 2023 and ECRI’s latest take on the Top 10 Patient Safety Concerns 2023. While technology is embedded in this list, the headlines have more

 

The Number of Unintended Deaths From Car Accidents, Falls and Overdoses in America Grew 40% Between 1999 and 2017

The rate of deaths due to unintentional injuries in the U.S. grew by 40% between 1999 and 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Three mortality line items make up this overall statistic: Deaths from motor vehicle traffic injuries Deaths from unintentional drug overdoses (that is, not including suicides which are defined as “intentional”), and Deaths due to unintentional falls. The line graph illustrates the macro trend on the top-line, with the three specific causes underneath. You see deaths due to falls, motor vehicle accidents, and drug overdoses increased over the eighteen years. Drug overdose death rates began