JUDY WOODRUFF:

Death rates in the United States have declined steadily for decades. But a study out this week found a disturbing reversal in mortality rates for white Americans between the ages of 45 and 54 who do not hold a college degree.

For that group, the rate of death has climbed since 1999, even as rates for people of different ages, races and education levels have continued to fall. The causes of death driving the reversal were suicide, alcohol-related liver diseases, and prescription opioids and heroin overdoses.

I'm joined now by one of the study's authors, Anne Case. She is a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University. And by Dante Chinni. He's a data reporter and he's director of the American Communities Project, a political science and journalism program at Michigan State University that uses data to look at social, political and cultural divides.

And welcome to you both.

Professor Case, let me begin with you.

You have said that when you and your husband, who is Professor Angus Deaton — he's the winner of this year's Nobel Prize, and he was the co-author of this study — that when you came across these numbers, you basically stumbled across this information, and that he said you practically fell out of your chairs. It was that surprising?