Charting trends in mortality is vital

Charting trends in mortality is vital to the profitability of insurance companies. As a result, more than 15,000 actuaries in the United States have thriving professional careers. Actuaries for the nation's largest insurance fund, the Social Security Administration (SSA), make sets of demographic projections every year that show the effects of low, middle, and high mortality rates eight decades into the future.

In the SSA's current middle series, the moderate mortality declines of 1968-91 continue at about the same rate. Under these conditions, the age and sex-adjusted death rate would decline from 750 per 100,000 U.S. residents in 1997 to 677 in 2010, 620 in 2025, 572 in 2040, and 529 in 2055. Life expectancy at birth increases to 74 years and 6 months for males,'so years and 77 months for females in 2010. It then increases at the rate of about one year of extra life in every 15 calendar years, to reach 77 years and 6 months for men, 83 years and months for women, in 2055.
\\\\\\\\\\\\

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4021/is_n4_v19/ai_19310644

The facts of death - statistics, demographics
American Demographics, April, 1997 by Brad Edmondson

Save a personal copy of this article and quickly find it again with Furl.net. Get started now. (It's free.)

Death has a contract on everyone, but 20th-century Americans have renegotiated the deal. A baby girl born in the US. in 1900 could expect to live years in 2000, she will expect to live almost 80 years. Thanks to advances in medicine, sanitation, and basic nutrition, the annual age-adjusted death rate per 100,000 Americans will decline from 2,296 in 1900 to a projected 731 in 2000. If this decline had never occurred, half of Americans alive in 2000 would never have been born.

Still, no one gets out of the contract. Sooner or later, every American's life and death is summarized on a state certificate like the one reproduced here. And as our souls float toward the afterworld, our numbers go to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). From the NCHS and other sources, here is what the average Americans death looked like at the end of the 20th century.

1-2. NAME AND SEX

Jane American Decedent is the average dead American. Her husband Joe, who died six years and six months before her, was almost as average. There were 2,2378,994 deaths in the U. S. in 1994, and 51 percent of the dead were men. For most of this century, 51 percent of babies born in the U.S. have been boys. But boys are more likely than girls to have accidents, work in dangerous jobs, and smoke cigarettes. They may also have shorter-lived genes than girls do. Whatever the reason, the median age at death in 1992 was about 73.2 years for men and about 79.7 years for women, for a national average of about 76.4. At age 75 to 84 about 51 percent of deaths are to women. After that, the gender gap widens fast. More than two-thirds of Americans who die at age 85 or older are women.

Because of the age difference, women are more likely than men to die of the lingering conditions that afflict the old. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the US. for both sexes, followed by cancer. Together, these two causes account for 85 percent of deaths. The third most common cause of death for men is accidents for women, it is cerebrovascular diseases (strokes). Human Immunodeficiency Virus infection (which causes AIDS) is seventh for men, suicide is eighth, and homicide is tenth, but none of these causes shows up on the topten list for women. Instead, women are more likely to face nephritis (kidney failure), septicemia (blood poisoning), and Alzheimer's disease.

These differences largely disappear with age, however. Among men and women aged 65 and older, the topten list is almost identical. As a result, increases in life expectancy for men will mean that fewer Americans will die suddenly, and that more will die in ways that consume a lot of healthcare services.

3A. DATE OF DEATH

Winter is deaths favorite season. In 1995, January had many more deaths than any other month (220,000). It was followed by March, April, and December. (February would have been second if it had had 31 days instead of 28). The month with the least deaths was September (178,000), followed by June, August, and May. The top day for death in 1992, the most recent year for which daily data are available, was January 3, when 7,422 Americans died. That is about 25 percent more than an average day in 1992. Death's slowest day was July 22, with just 5,347 deaths. That's about 10 percent below average.

There is less variation in deaths weekly schedule. The most likely day to die in 1992 was either Wednesday, Thursday, or Saturday, but the day with the least deaths -- Sunday -- was less than 2 percent below the daily average.

4A. PLACE OF DEATH

Seventy-seven percent of U.S. deaths in 1992 took place in some kind of health-care facility. These include the 48 percent of U.S. residents who died as hospital inpatients, 9 percent who died in emergency rooms, 3 percent who were pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital, and 17 percent who expired in a nursing home. Just 20 percent of U.S. residents died in a private home, and percent died in other places.

If your time comes prematurely, you're much more likely than average to die in a hospital. Ninety-one percent of infant deaths (under 1 year of age) were in hospitals in 1992. The proportion of hospital deaths was below average for only two age groups. Young people aged 15 to 24 are much more likely than the average American to die at the scene of a suicide, homicide, or motor-vehicle accident. Just 45 percent of deaths to those aged 85 and older took place in a hospital. But these very old were less likely than average to die at home, too, because 39 percent died in a nursing home.

Women are less likely than men to die in a hospital and more likely to depart from a nursing home. Only 56 percent of women died in hospitals in 1992, compared with percent of men. Yet 23 percent of all deaths for women were in nursing homes, compared with just 12 percent for men. This is because men are more likely to die elsewhere, such as at home or at the scene of an accident.

Most Americans say that they would prefer to die at home than in a hospital. A lingering death in a nursing home is one of the biggest fears of the elderly. But the alternative to death in a medical setting would usually be a shorter life. In 1900, only a small fraction of Americans died in hospitals, and infectious diseases like influenza were among the leading killers. For every person who dies in a modern hospital or nursing home, there are several healthy people who would have died without one.

4B-C. IF FACILITY, DATE OF ADMISSION, NAME, ADDRESS

Jane happened to die in Bellevue, New York City's largest public hospital, along with 400 other inpatients in an average year. Among the 401 who died at Bellevue in 1994, the average length of stay before death was 19 days and 18 hours. But the length of stay before death varied from I day to more than 73 days.

In all of New York City, about 71,000 people die every year. Last year, for the first time since the early 1970s, fewer than 1,000 were murdered. In contrast, about 27,500 New Yorkers a year die of heart disease, and 15,300 die of cancer.

5. DATE OF BIRTH AND AGE

When Jane was born in 1919, hospitals and antiseptics were new to most Americans. In that year, life expectancy at birth was 54 years and 2 months for males, and 56 years and 5 months for females. But Jane's survival chances improved throughout her life. Medical advances caused mortality rates to decline steadily for most of this century, with the most rapid drops between 1936 and 1954 (due mainly to new drugs, such as antibiotics) and between 1968 and 1982 (due to further advances in medical technology). In the 1980s and 1990s, mortality rates have declined at a slower but steady pace. Life expectancy for Americans born in 1997 is 72 years and 7 months for males, and 79 years and 5 months for females.

In the first half of the 20th century, the most dramatic improvements in survival rates happened among children. In 1900, an infant had only an 80 percent chance of surviving to age 15. Today, that probability approaches 99 percent. A couple with three children in 1900 faced almost a 50-50 chance that one child would die before maturity. In the 1980s, the odds for this loss were 1 in 17, and even lower for some families.

Mortality declines since 1950 have been more evenly distributed throughout the life cycle. Since 1980, in particular, there have been significant improvements in the rates for heart disease and cancer. How low can mortality ultimately gop Its hard to say, because changes in mortality depend on things that cant be predicted. Medical breakthroughs, trends in pollution control, changes in health behavior, the rate of violent crime, legislation, and many other factors can all have a major impact on the number who die, how we die, and how much it all costs.

Charting trends in mortality is vital to the profitability of insurance companies. As a result, more than 15,000 actuaries in the United States have thriving professional careers. Actuaries for the nation's largest insurance fund, the Social Security Administration (SSA), make sets of demographic projections every year that show the effects of low, middle, and high mortality rates eight decades into the future.

In the SSA's current middle series, the moderate mortality declines of 1968-91 continue at about the same rate. Under these conditions, the age and sex-adjusted death rate would decline from 750 per 100,000 U.S. residents in 1997 to 677 in 2010, 620 in 2025, 572 in 2040, and 529 in 2055. Life expectancy at birth increases to 74 years and 6 months for males,'so years and 77 months for females in 2010. It then increases at the rate of about one year of extra life in every 15 calendar years, to reach 77 years and 6 months for men, 83 years and months for women, in 2055.
=============

LOOKING FOR RESEARCH OF UPDATED DATA!

News shows to cover Social Security plan
The State - 4 hours ago
President Bush says his plan to promote private Social Security accounts won’t fix the retirement program’s future financial problems by itself.
Privatizing Social Security too risky Seattle Post Intelligencer
It's about restructuring Social Security, not about saving it South Bend Tribune
Denver Post - Buffalo News - Washington Post (Subscription) - Chicago Tribune (subscription) - all 1,742 related »