suicide rates in a number of eu countries increased following the recession and the eu financial crisis of mainly among men and were associated in part with rising unemployment levels but this trend did not persist in most countries oecd mortality rates at these midlife ages have been increasing since the s a trend attributed primarily to drug overdoses alcohol related liver disease and suicides deaths of despair and to decelerating improvements in mortality from heart disease and cancer woolf et al bernstein and ingraham the death rate from drug overdoses more than tripled between and with a sharp rise from hedegaard et al