Death Risk Rankings

September 4, 2009 10:57 AM

"Death Risk Rankingscalculates your risk of dying in the next year and allows you to compare that risk to others in the world." Fun with mortality data and statistics from Carnegie Mellon University.
posted by OmieWise (28 comments total)

How do death rates between the US and Europe compare?

Seems to me like they're both 100%
posted by infinitefloatingbrains at 11:09 AM on September 4 [4 favorites has favorites]

The use of "mircomorts" makes the results a little confusing, but it looks like I have a 10% chance of dying in the next 30 years. Now how do I factor that risk into how much I should be putting in my retirement account?
posted by 517 at 11:14 AM on September 4

interesting unit...

micromorts per ounce
micromorts per minute
micromorts per decible
posted by phrontist at 11:14 AM on September 4

now I have something to do Labor Day.
posted by baxter_ilion at 11:17 AM on September 4

Does it factor in PANDEMIC SWINE FLU WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE and DEATH PANELS ARE GOING TO KILL GRANNY in their numbers?
posted by Pollomacho at 11:18 AM on September 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

I expected some difference, but it was suprising to see males in my age group five times more likely to die by homicide in the U.S. as compared to Europe.
posted by exogenous at 11:24 AM on September 4

They know how to have fun at Carnegie Mellon.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 11:26 AM on September 4

Is a micromort anything like a Petite Mort?
posted by baxter_ilion at 11:31 AM on September 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wow, I'm way more likely to die of suicide or accident in the next 20 years than of cancer. That's a surprise to me.
posted by sswiller at 11:38 AM on September 4

What are the chances of me dying in space? Because that would be ok by me.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:42 AM on September 4

Well, regardless of that you'd be in very exclusive company, blue_beetle.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 12:01 PM on September 4

Is a micromort anything like a Petite Mort?

I'd rather not have a web site projecting my number of petit morts.
posted by Avelwood at 12:05 PM on September 4

What's the difference between Accidents and Accidents - Other ?
posted by swift at 12:42 PM on September 4

What's the difference between Accidents and Accidents - Other ?

Maybe that should read Accidents and "Accidents"?
posted by Pollomacho at 12:50 PM on September 4 [1 favorite has favorites]

Micro morte is safely asleep in his bed. Thanks for asking.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 1:29 PM on September 4

this site sounds like all fun and games until CHOICEPOINT gets ahold of it and sells a report on your risk of dying
posted by Hammond Rye at 1:46 PM on September 4

since the chart shows that over 100,000 people over age 80 die every year in my region, I'm going to assume they've already taken the death panels into account.
posted by shmegegge at 1:47 PM on September 4

okay, choicepoint says they don't collect health info, but somebody out there probably could.
posted by Hammond Rye at 1:48 PM on September 4

not nearly as much fun as I expected.
posted by cogneuro at 1:55 PM on September 4

I don't think much of the site, it was too difficult to understand. All they've done is put a web interface on a database. It's not presented in a way to make it easy to follow or impactful for a general web audience. You have to spend five minutes reading the tutorials to figure out what it all means. It seems to be aimed at researchers. I think the site would have been far more suited to a general readership if, for example, they had posed a series of questions. Or at least it would have been far quicker to get to grips with if instead of labelling the first control on the death comparison page "Step 1: Primary Comparison", they had labelled it "See your risk of death broken down according to:". Also why is that step one? I think it would be more intuitive to have the search criteria as the first step, and to have labelled that set of controls "Find the risk of death for someone who is:" rather than "Search Criteria".
posted by salo at 2:09 PM on September 4

No South American data because we live forever.
posted by Memo at 2:19 PM on September 4

Hrm. Since it's only the U.S. and "Europe", I chose a semi-random state for comparative purposes.

Seems an awful lot of you folks in Washington are killing yourselves.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 2:41 PM on September 4

It's all fun and games, until somebody dies.
posted by iamkimiam at 4:39 PM on September 4

A Terrible Llama: "They know how to have fun at Carnegie Mellon."

Obviously you said that ironically but it's true they really don't.
posted by octothorpe at 9:05 PM on September 4

Interesting that in my age category 40-49, 3x as many males as females will die in the next year of something related to mental illness. Does that mean that more males have a mental illness or that females just don't die of the illness as often?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:59 PM on September 4

3x as many males as females will die in the next year of something related to mental illness.

I think I remember reading long ago that females will attempt suicide more often, but males are more likely to be successful, largely because they use guns, and there's less chance of a being found out or having a last minute change of heart.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 6:14 AM on September 5

I was really surprised to see 'accidental poisoning' so far up the list. Is that because it covers drug overdoses?
posted by Mitrovarr at 12:35 PM on September 5

I was really surprised to see 'accidental poisoning' so far up the list. Is that because it covers drug overdoses?
posted by Mitrovarr at 12:35 PM

I don't know, but it might have to do with the surprisingly high number of deaths that occur due to adverse reactions to prescription drugs.
posted by Marla Singer at 1:33 PM on September 5