I think there isn't enough emphasis on culture as a factor of deaths of despair. The fact it is restricted to being higher among whites as opposed to those even

I think there isn't enough emphasis on culture as a factor of deaths of despair. The fact it is restricted to being higher among whites as opposed to those even worse off. Not to victim blame but that the difference might be useful for uncovering the root cause. There likely dysfunctional elements enshrined that are individually found within - take anti-intellectualism which is not exclusive to them may arise more in fatal combinations. There are likely many in reality but a simple "fatal combination" may also suffice. Anti-intelletualism has always lead to bad outcomes really as a whole. There may even be toxic movements /within/ a given college culture but crucially there is always an element of self improvement there as a motivation. Even in the most degenerate stereotypical case of "learn nothing in four years to get the diploma for connections" they still have a goal even if they have latter regrets from doing things wrong. The crab-bucket mentality often found within looks down upon those who do anything to try to make more of themselves as it makes them feel bad to see others try when they do not. A third obvious ingredient is "lack of opportunity" which has synnergy with the first two - if they see opportunity but wind up in learned helplessness leaving it out of reach or fundamentally betraying who they are or degrading themselves. Combine the three and well it starts to become understandable how it becomes a fatal trap. But minority groups show it isn't so simple. Given the evidence has throughly shown people are people the difference is likely that they tend to more often have or develop some sort of support network because they feel the world or authorities are aligned against them. Even the long cast out from born family LGBT members who were (and sadly often still are) societally strongly encouraged to keep it secret. Sadly one outlier I am aware of are Native Americans who tend to have less than ideal situations with reservations to put it mildly. It might be a matter of magnitudes as well. Of course even if the hypothesis is correct there is still a matter of how to address each variable of the systems.