There’s a long list of measures that examine who is struggling in the United States — from poverty rates to income inequality — but in recent years a complicated set of personal struggles and challenges has come to be measured in one phrase, Deaths of Despair. This phrase describes deaths caused or brought on by alcohol and drugs as well as suicide. Behind the three words is a long list of root causes.
With this piece, the American Communities Project begins a two-year exploration into the causes and effects of Deaths of Despair, as well as positive interventions that might help decrease the phenomenon, funded by The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. CONT.
Dante Chinni, American Communities Project