Average life expectancy is falling largely due to deaths of despair. GTP-4 elucidates: The term ... “deaths of despair” ... was first defined by economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton in 2015. These deaths are due to suicide, overdoses, and alcoholic liver diseases and disproportionately impact White males without a college degree. The term has been used to describe the rising mortality rates among middle-aged, non-Hispanic white people, especially those without a college degree. The reason for this increase in mortality is largely due to people drinking themselves to death with alcohol, accidentally overdosing on opioids and other drugs, and killing themselves. Vanishing jobs, disintegrating families, and other social stressors have unleashed a rising tide of fatal despair.