AUDIO – DEAD FOOD? –
Nov. 7, 2025 – Premature deaths among 18-to-64-year-olds rose 27 percent. The report revealed stark inequities in who lives long enough to collect the benefits they’ve helped fund, finding disparate outcomes not just by race but also by place. States such as West Virginia, New Mexico and Mississippi had the nation’s highest premature-mortality rates while Massachusetts and Minnesota fared best, the study showed. One study found that preventable and treatable deaths — in which people younger than 75 whose deaths were driven by preventable conditions such as heart disease, substance-related deaths and chronic respiratory illness — increased in every U.S. state between 2009 and 2019. Meanwhile, such deaths are declining in 34 other high-income countries and increased in six, the study showed.
