After decades of improving health and increased longevity, there has been a dramatic reversal in the mortality rate among middle-age white Americans - and drug abuse is the culprit.

Between 1999 and 2013, there was a significant rise in the mortality rate among middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women in the U.S, according to a recent study co-authored by 2015 Nobel Prize winning economist Angus Deaton of Princeton University.

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"This change reversed decades of progress in mortality and was unique to the United States," the report said. "No other rich country saw a similar turnaround."

According to the report, an upward trend in suicide, and drug and alcohol poisoning among middle-aged white people has been overlooked as the main cause of this reversal.

If the white mortality rate for people aged 45 to 54 had continued at the rate of decline recorded between 1979 and 1998, half a million deaths would have been avoided between 1999‒2013, "comparable to lives lost in the U.S. AIDS epidemic through mid-2015," says the report.

The study also found that drug overdoses were not concentrated among minorities. In 1999, the rate of overdose deaths for people age 45 to 54 was 10.2 per 100,000 higher for black non-Hispanics than white non-Hispanics. But by 2013, that rate was 8.4 per 100,000 higher for whites. Deaths caused by cirrhosis and chronic liver diseases declined for black people and rose among white people.

After 2006, the rate of alcohol- and drug-induced deaths for white non-Hispanics surpassed those for black non-Hispanics. And in 2013, rates for white non- Hispanic exceeded those for black non-Hispanics by 19 per 100,000.

Obesity among Americans, and the health problems associated with it has been well publicized. However, the study found that the increased prevalence of obesity accounted for only a small fraction of the overall decline in mortality rate.

Because of the declining mortality rate, the report cites "a serious concern" that when middle-age white Americans get older and are eligible for Medicare, they will "in worse shape than the currently elderly."

But "this is not automatic; if the epidemic is brought under control, its survivors may have a healthy old age, " says the study. "However, addictions are hard to treat and pain is hard to control, so those currently in midlife may be a lost generation whose future is less bright than those who preceded them."

TagsDrug Deaths Among White Gen Xers Equal to AIDS Epidemic, mortality rates, morbidity, drug abuse, opioids, Angus Deaton. 2015 nobel prize