Former Harvard RWJF Health & Society Scholar Jennifer Karas Montez, PhD, is co-author on a Commentary in The Lancet that calls for the next generation of studies on US mortality to focus more on macro-level factors, such as disparities across states’ social, economic, and policy environments, rather than just on the symptoms of higher mortality rates, which include suspect opiod prescribing practices and inadequate drug abuse and overdose treatment programs.