sources

missing persons
https://namus.nij.ojp.gov
drug overdose death rate
https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/deaths/2020.html
suicide rate
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/suicide-mortality/suicide.htm
life expectancy https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/life_expectancy/life_expectancy.htm

tool: Mathematica

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– the dashed lines are the means; the 'boxes' are ± one standard deviation (SD) from the mean
– the parenthetical percent is the "relative standard deviation" (RSD)

other comments for "missing persons and drug overdose death rate"
(compared with suicide rate and life expectancy)
1 "compare and contrast"
... the top two plots show random data: missing persons t-test = 0.96; overdose death t-test = 0.46. Note the SD overlaps.
... the bottom two plots show non-random data. Note the smaller t-test p-values.
What is the same about the top two? What is the same about the bottom two?
What is it about the top two that make them different from the bottom two?
2
... the curious aspect: the top two are "atypical" because of the greater "random" character of the data.
(Other data sets showing similar atypicality have not been found.)
and the bottom two are "typical" of other non-random, top/bottom, Rep/Dem data sets:
obesity, suicide, infant mortality , accidental deaths, incarceration rate, murder rate, violent crime, etc.
(summary of "typical" metrics posted 14Apr2022)
3
– the difference between "random" and "non-random" data is Systemic Bias
– Systemic Bias is either genetic or environmental
– How did 150 million voters separate the fifty states into the two distinct non-random, top/bottom, Rep/Dem groupings which exhibit quantifiable different character?

Going to need more formal correlation stats if you're trying to do anything other than trick people into arriving at false causation/conclusion effects.

I wonder what else happened around 2020 that may have had some impact on this data?!

I can't remember anything major except the entire world being put into lockdown, but I'm sure that had no effect whatsoever on missing persons, suicide, and drug overdoses.

Probably was political...

"trick people"

"tricks" ...successful tricks create an illusion of fairness: for example, a card trick requires the illusion that a "fair" deck is "fairly" shuffled and "fairly" dealt.

This post presents four data metrics. The tabular data is presented visually. The plot of missing persons illustrates definite random distribution; the plot of drug overdose deaths shows a 50/50 maybe yes/maybe no "fair" deal; the suicide and life expectancy plots definitely show a top/bottom distribution. The means and SDs quantify the random/non-random character of the deals.

The random/nonrandom, top/bottom, Rep/Dem pattern is mysterious; especially as it is repeated for other data metrics; e.g. "obesity, suicide, infant mortality , accidental deaths, incarceration rate, murder rate, violent crime, etc.".

The point: except for missing persons and (likely) drug overdose deaths, the data is being unfairly shuffled and dealt (assuming a fair deck). Who is this Trickster? Twain's "Mysterious Stranger"? or is it Maxwell's Demon operating politically?

I don't think so: the deck is not a fair deck: the deck is "stacked". The data is evidence of Systemic Bias, not the work of a Trickster presenting an illusion of fairness....

the illusion of fairness is a delusion:
The majority of men prefer delusion to truth. It [delusion] soothes. It is easy to grasp. Above all, it fits more snugly than the truth into a universe of false appearances – of complex and irrational phenomena, defectively grasped.
H.L. Mencken

Yep, "illusion of fairness" as in the absence of bias.

... yeah, there is the thought that 2020 was unique (some 'causative' event) and that, therefore, the data is just 'coincidental" because the non-random, top/bottom Rep/Dem pattern would not be so noticeable

BUT

Mencken did a ranking of the states in 1930 using multiple data sources and multiple metrics and Politico did so in 2014 and there was an 2022 International Economic Review paper doing a 'well-ness' survey ––– all with similar results showing the pattern (05Jan2023 post).

Ninety years, different investigators, different (mostly) metics: same results ...

... go figure

I think you are right: "probably political" ... finding the metrics which would define "political" ... now there is a quest

I have no dog in this politics fight but OP did use data for both suicides and life expectancy from prior to the pandemic. So your point doesn’t make sense.

COVID started January 10th, 2020.

Election was 11 months later.

Your point doesn’t make sense.

… that’s the 2019 suicide rate and the 2018 life expectancy correlated with those election results. But yeah good call my point is the one that doesn’t make sense