LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) — A new University of Michigan study shows a grim reality: more children in Michigan are losing parents to overdose, suicide, and violence than ever before.

Since 2000, more than 115,000 children in the state have lost a parent. Of those, nearly 40 percent were from what researchers call “stigmatized deaths”—drug overdoses, suicides, homicides, or alcohol-related causes. In 2023 alone, that share climbed to 42 percent.

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“These parental deaths … are associated with more adverse health outcomes and higher rates of early mortality in their children,” researcher Sean Esteban McCabe said.

Not only did the study find that these deaths now make up two in five parental deaths in Michigan, but as it turns out, the problem is spread across the map—from Marquette and Luce in the U.P. to Monroe and St. Clair downstate. Researchers linked the rising numbers to the “surge in fatal drug overdoses over the past decade.”

Rather than expanding “bereavement services,” as McCabe proposes at the end of the study, the numbers arguably point to a clearer solution: rebuilding the strength of the family itself. The nuclear family has long been America’s best safety net. Without it, the statistics themselves reveal children bear the cost when parents are lost.