These charts help explain Trump's massive election upset in the traditionally deep-blue 'Rust Belt'

President-elect Donald Trump won a stunning electoral victory thanks to triumphs in several states that had long swung Democratic, like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, as well as swing states, like Ohio and Florida.

Since the election, Shannon Monnat, a rural sociologist and demographer at Pennsylvania State University, has dug into the voting data to try to figure out why Trump "overperformed" in certain counties.

Through her research, which was released in a brief Monday, Monnat found a possible answer: Counties that voted more heavily for Trump than expected were closely correlated with counties that experienced high rates of death caused by drugs, alcohol, and suicide.

Monnat wasn't surprised by the correlation.

"I expected to see it because when you think about the underlying factors that lead to overdose or suicide, it's depression, despair, distress, and anxiety," she told Business Insider in November. "That was the message that Trump was appealing to."

That wasn't the only correlation Monnat found. Here's what else she saw: