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Damage Control Interdisciplinarity: An Antidote To Death Despair In Military Medicine, Erika "Ann" Jeschke

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

“Diseases of despair” is a conceptually broad category used to describe the phenomenon of premature mortality caused by suicide, drug poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease. Central to this conceptualization of mortality is that death occurs too early in an entire population of individuals infected with social despair. Implicit in the diseases of despair construct is a powerful normative claim about the manner and time of death—that death is bad if it is contextualized in unwanted conditions and happens before reaching midlife. As such, diseases of despair ought to be reduced, if not eliminated. Interestingly, military medical research on combat casualties …