Like old Baby Boomers, the life expectancy of Gen X and Y Americans is also declining, reveals a new research.
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‘Drug overdoses, suicide, alcohol-related diseases, diabetes-related mortality, cancer, traffic accidents, etc. are the causes of death among Gen X and Y Americans.’
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To study cause of death for Americans born from 1946 to 1992, the researchers used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Mortality Multiple Cause Files for the years 1990-2016. 
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Late Gen X and early Gen Y Americans were aged 25 to 43 during the Great Recession and faced greater difficulty finding jobs, which may have contributed to greater health impacts.
"Social scientists and policymakers are aware of the financial burden for the younger generation, but the elevated mortality rate among them has largely been ignored," the authors say in a paper that appears in the December issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology.
The study examined death rates in five different age cohorts, comparing men and women, as well as whites, blacks and Hispanics.
"Few studies have looked at Hispanics when considering disparities in mortality," Zang said.
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For Baby Boomers, five causes of death drove the rising mortality rates.
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• For Hispanics, overdoses and suicides are the leading causes of death.
• For non-Hispanic whites, both men and women, overdoses and alcohol-related diseases appear to drive increased mortality.
• For non-Hispanic black women, diabetes-related mortality is increasing.
• For non-Hispanic black men, leading causes are cancer, alcohol-related diseases and external causes, such as traffic accidents.
The time period of the study spans the opioid abuse crisis and the Great Recession. Some of the disparities may reflect different access to opioid prescriptions among blacks, whites and Hispanics, Zang said.
Source-Eurekalert