Death statistics

In terms of total deaths, cancers are responsible for about 22% of the deaths in the United States. A majority of the people, 78%, die from some other cause. Of the cancers, roughly half of the deaths are caused by cancer of three organs the lungs, the colon or rectum, and the breast. Leukemia and lymphomas—cancers of the blood and immune system—are important mainly because they often affect children and young adults. While the estimated new cases is a useful statistic, mortality is the most accessible and reliable indicator of the impact of cancer. Too many variables influence the diagnosis of cancer to make new cases a reliable statistic. Death from cancer is a cold hard fact. 

National Center for Health Statistics. Deaths from each cause, by month, race, and sex. Hyattsville, MD NCHS, 2003. Available on http //www.cdc.gov/nchs. 

The LD q is the statistically derived dose of a substance which results ia death ia 50% of a population of animals. The is expressed ia milligrams of... 

Table 1 Mortality from cancer of the stomach and other causes between 1 January 1946 and 28 February 1981 among 1327 male workers in a factory making ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Deaths observed compared with deaths expected from statistics for workers in comparable jobs in the locality. Statistics for heavily and less heavily exposed workers combined ...

The LD50 is the statistically derived single dosage of a substance that can be expected to cause death in 50% of the sample population. It is therefore an indicator of acute toxicity, usually determined by ingestion using rats or mice, although other animals may be used. LD50 is also determined by other routes, e.g. by skin absorption in rabbits. The values are affected by species, sex, age, etc. 

Median Lethal Dose (LD) The statistically derived single dose of a chemical that can be c.xpected to cause death in 50% of a given population of organisms under a defined set of experimental conditions. This figure has often been used to classify and compare toxicity among chemicals but its value for this purpose is doubtful. One commonly used classification of this kind is as follows ... 

In making an effort to miderstand the significance of risk analyses, it is helpful to place tlie estimated risks in tlie same perspective as otlier everyday risks tliat have been determined by a similar inctliodology. Table 18.7.1 lists a nmnber of risks for comparison. These have been derived from actual statistics and reasonable estimates." " People often overestimate tlie frequency and seriousness of dramatic, sensational, dreaded, well-publicized causes of death and miderestimate the risks from more familiar, accepted causes tliat claim lives one by one. Indeed, risk estimates by "experts and lay people (or "the public ) on many key enviromiieiital problems differ significantly. This problem and the reasons for it are extremely important because in our society the public generally does not trust experts to make important risk decisions alone. 

Hanvelt et al. (1994) estimated the nationwide indirect costs of mortality due to HIV/AIDS in Canada. A descriptive, population-based economic evaluation study was conducted. Data from Statistics Canada were used, which contained information about aU men aged 25-64 years for whom HIV/AIDS or another selected disease was listed as the underlying cause of death from 1987 to 1991. Based on the human capital approach, the present value of future earnings lost for men was calculated. The estimated total loss from 1987 to 1991 was US 2.11 billion, with an average cost of US 558,000 per death associated with HIV/AIDS. Future production loss due to HIV/AIDS was more than double during the period 1987 to 1991, from US 0.27 to US 0.60 billion. A more comprehensive update of this smdy was presented by Hanvelt et al. (1996). The same database and the same data section but for the calendar years 1987-1993 was used. The indirect cost of future production due to HIV/AIDS in Canada based on the human capital approach for that period was estimated to be US 3.28 billion. The authors also calculated the willingness-to-pay to prevent premature death due to HIV/AIDS, which was estimated based on... 

Fatal reactions to Hymenoptera stings are rare they range from 0.09 to 0.48 per million inhabitants and year [31, 32]. However, the true number may be underestimated in one study, specific IgE antibodies to Hymenoptera venoms were detected in 23% of postmortem serum samples from patients who died outdoors from unknown reasons [33]. Between 1961 and 2004, 140 fatal Hymenoptera sting reactions were registered by the federal administration for statistics in Switzerland with about 7.5 million inhabitants, resulting in an average annual fatality rate of 3.18. If these data are extrapolated to Europe with a population of around 500 million, the annual death rate in Europe would amount to about 200. 

When the CAST collaborative group performed a meta-analysis of 1ST, CAST, and MAST-I, the trend seen in CAST and 1ST toward a beneficial effect of aspirin on the rate of death or dependency reached the threshold for statistical significance. Early aspirin therapy (160-300 mg/day) conferred an absolute reduction in the rate of recurrent ischemic stroke by 0.7% (7 per 1000 patients treated) (p < 0.001) and reduced the rate of death or dependency by 1.3% (13 per 1000 patients treated) (2p = 0.007). Aspirin caused about 2 hemorrhagic strokes among every 1000 patients treated, but prevented about 11 other strokes or deaths in hospital. 

More than 66 percent of PCP-related deaths reported to DAWN in 1983 involved at least one other drug. Table 5 shows a statistically significant relationship for alcohol combined with PCP and heroin combined with PCP (alcohol Xz=12.41, df=l, p <. 001 heroin X2 =29.13, df=l, p <. 001). 

Although the increase in deaths in female mink was statistically significant at the high dose, it was not clear if the deaths were treatment related. In a concurrent study that was conducted to assess the toxicity of dicyclopentadiene, which used mink from the same lot, the mortality in the untreated female mink was 4 of 24, with 2 mink dying between the time of mating and lactation. It should also be noted that mink... 

One approach is to compare the risks, calculated from a hazard analysis, with risks that are generally considered acceptable such as, the average risks in the particular industry, and the kind of risks that people accept voluntarily. One measure of the risk to life is the Fatal Accident Frequency Rate (FAFR), defined as the number of deaths per 108 working hours. This is equivalent to the number of deaths in a group of 1000 men over their working lives. The FAFR can be calculated from statistical data for various industries and activities some of the published values are shown in Tables 9.8 and 9.9. Table 9.8 shows the relative position of the chemical industry compared with other industries Table 9.9 gives values for some of the risks that people accept voluntarily. 

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