Middle-aged White women in America are dying at staggeringly rates from drug overdoses, suicides & drinking

Across the country, middle-aged white women are dying at staggeringly higher rates, particularly from drug overdoses, suicides and excessive drinking.

The trend is most powerful in rural areas and smaller cities, where middle-aged white men are also dying more. In contrast, middle-aged African Americans, Hispanics and whites in the largest cities are dying less often, The Washington Post found in an investigation.

In Carbon County, Utah, the death rate for middle-aged white women has increased 46 percent. The current rate of 223 deaths per 100,000 people is in the middle third of the state and the highest third of the nation. This means that death rates in this county fall in the middle for counties in Utah and are worse than two-thirds of counties nationally.

The CDC classifies Carbon County as rural or sparsely suburban, which places it among the 24 rural or sparsely suburban counties in Utah where the death rate for middle-aged white women has increased.

The trend for white women in this county fits into national shifts in death rates.

A high-percent increase in death rate doesn’t necessarily mean a county has a high death rate (or vice versa), but in most states, the counties that have seen the largest increases will also have among the highest rates.

Find your county's death rate here.