How to build a culture of health.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that the U.S. death rate rose last year for the first time in a decade, driven by increased mortality from drug overdoses, suicides, and Alzheimer's. Even the death rate from heart disease is inching up after a long decline. The suicide rate is at a 30 year high, and a decades-long decline in the death rate of middle-aged white Americans reversed in recent years, a backslide experienced by no other industrialized nation. Health also reflects the inequities that plague so many areas of American society: there is a four-year gap in the life expectancy of whites and African Americans, which means 265 African-Americans die prematurely every day.