And they are not alone.
There was a fascinating article, “A great divide in American death,” about the decline in life expectancy of rural white women in today’s Washington Post. It can be found at this site:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/national/2016/04/10/a-new-divide-in-american-death/
Here is one of many fascinating graphs (click on graph to see it more clearly):