Actuarial data

The number of pharmacists leaving practice (the separation rate) is harder to estimate. These rates typically rely on actuarial data for deaths and retirements but cannot account for those leaving the profession or the percentage of an age- or sex-based cohort who will leave the workforce in a given time period. 

Other risks cannot be so easily estimated because the necessary actuarial data do not exist and frequently cannot even be collected. Many of the potential risks from exposure to chemicals are in this second category. In addition to the absence of actuarial data relating to them, these risks tend to have the following characteristics ... 

Therefore, extreme value projection may be useful in calculation probabilities to be used for risk assessment codes or total risk exposure codes based on actuarial data. Extreme value projection can also be useful in communicating hazard information to management and may aid in drawing management attention to a problem before a serious accident occurs. 

Major sources of uncertainty in human reliability analysis include the availability of actuarial data on human error probabilities and the variability of human performance. Human factors specialists call for the institution of data banks concerning human error that would be used in the same way as equipment data banks. For HEP one would like to know the number of errors for each action that occurred and how many times these actions were performed. For the present, the state of behavioral data remains insufficient. Most of the estimates of hep s represent extrapolations from human error data based on tasks performed in a variety of settings, e.g. within process industries and in industrial and military settings. Due to variations in equipment, tasks, and environment, errors are hardly comparable. 

The stochastic tools used here differ considerably from those used in other fields of application, e.g., the investigation of measurements of physical data. For example, in this article normal distributions do not appear. On the other hand random sums, invented in actuary theory, are important. In the first theoretical part we start with random demand and end with conditional random service which is the basic quantity that should be used to decide how much of a product one should produce in a given period of time. 

Information on death rates from automobile or other types of accidents or activities is generally much more solid than that pertaining to most chemical risks. Statistical data, compiled by actuaries, are used to derive such risk information. There is uncertainty associated with these actuarial figures, but most are fairly reliable. Most of the risk information about various cancers, presented in Chapter 5, is of this type. 

Note that some of the risk information is actuarial (based on statistical data, typically collected and organized by insurance companies), and some of it has been derived from the type of risk assessment discussed in this book (chloroform in chlorinated drinking water, afla-toxin in peanut products). While the uncertainties associated with the figures in Table 11.2 are much greater for some risks than for others (not a trivial problem in presentation of risk data), such a presentation, it would seem, is helpful to people who are trying to acquire some understanding of extremely low probability events, of the order of one-in-one million. 

These risks are, for the most part, large ones, and can be measured directly, by epidemiological studies and also by the activities of actuaries, who find ways to collect statistical data on rates of accidents and other safety risks, and on how they are distributed in populations. All-in-all, the relatively few risks that are large - the major causes of... 

In the Soderhamn cohort, the risk of stroke was approximately 5% per year and the overall mortality was 24.7% over a mean of three years (Terent 1990). No data were reported on cardiovascular morbidity or mortality. In the Perugia cohort, the annual risk of stroke after TIA was 2.4% (95% confidence interval [Cl] 0.7-4.7) (Ricci et al. 1998). The actuarial risk of death was 28.6% (95% Cl, 19.2-37.8) at five years and 49.5% (95% Cl,... 

In studies of quantitative structure activity relationships (QSAR), the relative potencies of a series of drugs are subjected to analysis with the hope that biological potency will be described by a mathematical equation. QSAR is an actuarial or statistical method in which only objective data are used with no intrusion of models or mechanistic hypotheses. The equation that is obtained not only accounts for the relative potencies of the compounds, but from it are deduced predictions of the potencies of untested compounds if the equation is valid, the predictions are ineluctable. The method thus has the capacity of yielding new (structurally related) drugs with desired potency, perhaps drugs with enhanced selectivity or fewer side effects. 

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration, Office of National Health Statistics, Office of the Actuary, unpublished data, Baltimore, MD, March 1992. 

The reversibility of radiation fibrosis in skin and subcutaneous tissues in response to antioxidants is supported by regression of indnration reported in a French non-randomized pilot study involving intramuscnlar administration of bovine liposomal Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD), 5 mg twice weekly for 3 weeks, to 34 patients with 42 distinct zones of superficial fibrosis. Softening of snbcutaneous induration was noted in 86% of fibrotic zones, with an actuarial response rate of 70% by 5 years. Complete regressions were noted in 7 of 42 (17%) of the fibrotic zones. Supportive data are reported with topical apphcations of SOD over a period of several months in 40 patients with fibrosis after postmastectomy radiotherapy for early breast cancer. These studies were not pursued after bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was recognized and bovine products withdrawn. 

At present the model is a work in progress so the validation has not heen finalized. The challenge is that all components of the model, i.e. atmospheric, engineering, and actuarial, need to be validate independently and then a validation of all components working together is also necessary. These vahdations are dependent on the availability of reliable insurance data. 

A nonprofit association of insurance companies that provides services for participating companies. It provides statistical, actuarial, and underwriting information for numerous affiliated insurance companies and more than a dozen lines of insurance. It maintains one of the largest private databases in the world for insurance premiums and losses paid. Included in these lines is liability, automobile, boiler and machinery, homeowners, farm, and commercial fire insurance. ISO is a voluntary, nonprofit, unincorporated association of insurers. Previous to 1971, the functions performed by ISO were undertaken by various insurance organizations in different states. ISO gathers data that are used to establish rates for fire protection policies for residential and commercial properties. ISO developed the municipal grading schedule, which is commonly used to establish a basis of insurance rates for municipalities. It is an evaluation of the fire protection features of cities and towns based on seven factors climatic conditions, water supply, fire department, fire service communications, fire safety control, building codes, and a survey report. 

Electronics and electronic engineering make up the essence of the computer industry indeed, electronics is an industry worth billions of dollars annually. Electronics affects not only the material side of industry but also the theoretical and actuarial side. Business management, accounting, customer relations, inventory and sales data, and human resources... 

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