Death Risk Rankings
DeathRiskRankings.com, a new website that is creating quite a buzz, claims to be able to tell when you are going to die. Morbid sounding, I know, but growing to be extremely popular. With the new 3-D version of Final Destination coming out, the timing was perfect for Death Risk Rankings to launch.
According to Fox News, Death Risk Rankings calculates death rates based on data from the U.S. and Europe. Students from Carnegie Mellon University came up with the idea and converged as much information as they could regarding a person’s death risk based on age, weight, gender, location, and everything and anything else that you can think of.
Although, head over to Google and try to find this buzzing topic, and you’ll have no luck. I’m still trying to figure out if this is a scam or not. You know how Fox News can be, and this topic did get them to the top of Google most searched terms for the day. But, lets dive a little deeper into this fascination with death risk rankings.
One of the most popular widgets on Myspace is one that can predict when you’re going to die. Again, morbid, right? But, people want to know these things. And with the health care topic continually heading back to death panels and pulling the plug on grandma, it’s no wonder that Death Risk Rankings and games predicting when you’re going to die are so popular.
Upon trying to find Death Risk Rankings, if you search around you’ll be directed to a lot of bloggers and links to www.deathriskrankings.com, but you might never find it. Does it exist? Probably, and it probably just got overloaded with traffic.
From what I understand, the website is more logistic and statistical than most “predict your death” phenomena.
Death Facts
The researchers found that beyond infancy, the risk of dying increases annually at an exponential rate. A 20-year-old U.S. woman has a 1 in 2,000 (or 0.05 percent) chance of dying in the next year. By age 40, the risk is three times greater; by age 60, it is 16 times greater; and by age 80, it is 100 times greater (around 1 in 20 or 5 percent). “The risks are higher, but still not that bad,” Gerard said. “At 80, the average U.S. woman still has a 95 percent chance of making it to her 81st birthday.”
When it comes to dying within the year, it turns out there are dramatic differences between comparative groups:
- For every age group, men have a much higher annual death risk than women. For 20 year olds, the risk is 2.5 to three times greater. Men are much more prone to accidents, homicides and suicides, and the risk of dying from heart disease is always higher for men than women, peaking in the 50s when men are 2.5 times at greater risk of dying. However, women’s cancer risks are actually higher than men’s in their 30s and 40s.
- For heart disease and cancer, U.S. blacks have a much higher death risk than U.S. whites. Overall, blacks in their 30s and 40s are twice as likely to die within the year as their white counterparts. Only for suicides, do whites consistently exceed blacks, where whites typically have two to three times greater chances of dying.
- For 20-year-old males, 80 percent of their death risks are from accidents, homicides and suicides. By age 50, however, these causes make up less than 10 percent and heart disease is No. 1, accounting for more than 30 percent of all deaths.
- People living in Western Europe have a greater risk of dying from breast and prostate cancer than people living in the United States, but people in the United States have a greater chance of dying from lung cancer than people living in Western Europe.
- Obesity-related death risks are much higher in the United States than in Europe. For example, the annual diabetes death risk in the United States is three times that found in northern Europe for 60 year olds.
“It’s much easier to make a persuasive argument when you have the facts to back it up, and this site provides all sides with the facts,” Fischbeck said. “We believe that this tool, which allows anyone to assess their own risk of dying and to compare their risks with counterparts in the United States and Europe, could help inform the public and constructively engage them in the debate.” (Science Codex)
Perhaps all this discussion about health care has spurred people’s interest in death. If they don’t know what their health care is going to cover, and what the death panels are going to do with them during their “sunset years,” then at least they’ll know when they’re going to die.
Town Hall Update
The Town Hell Instruction Manual has been updated to include a link to www.deathriskrankings.com. According to the new version of the Manual, it is extremely important that before you pack heat and head to the town hall meeting with your Obama-Hitler sign, take a moment to sit down with your potluck buddies and visit Death Risk Rankings. This way you’ll have time to figure out when you are going to die. Once you know the exact date of your impeding death you’ll have more confidence to take on Washington and the town hall speaker with all the vigor you have in your screaming lungs. You’ll know when the death panels will make the final end of life decision.
For more information on health care that will rock your socks, visit http://www.noinsuranceclub.com. And for a sneak peak (media only) of our new Health Care Crisis Channel hosted by former Miss AZ, visit http://www.healthcarecrisischannel.com/media.
