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Micromort

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Revision as of 14:14, 16 March 2011 by Pokipsy76 (talk | contribs) (→Additional: links)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) This article is about the measure of mortality risk. For the computer program, see Micromort (software).

A micromort is a unit of risk measuring a one-in-a-million probability of death (from micro- and mortality). Micromorts can be used to measure riskiness of various day-to-day activities. A microprobability is a one-in-a million chance of some event; thus a micromort is the microprobability of death. The micromort concept was introduced by Ronald A. Howard who pioneered the modern practice of decision analysis.

Human values

Money

An application of micromorts is measuring the value that humans place on risk: for example, one can consider the amount of money one would have to pay a person to get him or her to accept a one-in-a-million chance of death (or conversely the amount that someone might be willing to pay to avoid a one-in-a-million chance of death). When put thus people claim a high number but when inferred from their day-to-day actions (e.g., how much they are willing to pay for safety features on cars) a typical value is around $50 (in 2009).

Baseline

The average risk of dying per day can be calculated from the average lifetime. Assuming this is 80 years, that means there is one death for every 30,000 days lived (80 x 365 = 29,200). The number of micromorts per day is one million divided by that number of days; in this case, about 33 micromorts. This is just an average across an entire population: the number of micromorts per day will vary across different categories of people, such as by age, sex and lifestyle. An alternative way of getting the same figure is to take the number of people dying each day in the UK (about 2500), and divide it by the total population (60 million). These figures include all deaths. When natural deaths are excluded, the result measures the risk of premature death, which is roughly one micromort per day. In the UK, approximately 50 people die each day, on average, from non-natural causes ).

Additional

Risks that increase the annual death risk by one micromort, and their associated cause of death:

  • smoking 1.4 cigarettes (cancer, heart disease)
  • drinking 0.5 liter of wine (cirrhosis of the liver)
  • spending 1 hour in a coal mine (black lung disease)
  • spending 3 hours in a coal mine (accident)
  • living 2 days in New York or Boston (air pollution)
  • living 2 months in Denver (cancer from cosmic radiation)
  • living 2 months with a smoker (cancer, heart disease)
  • drinking Miami water for 1 year (cancer from chloroform)
  • eating 100 charcoal-broiled steaks (cancer from benzopyrene)
  • eating 40 tablespoons of peanut butter (liver cancer from Aflatoxin B)
  • eating 1000 bananas (cancer from radioactive Potassium-40)
  • traveling 6 minutes by canoe (accident)
  • traveling 230 miles (370 km) by car (accident)
  • traveling 6000 miles (9656 km) by train (accident)
  • flying 1000 miles (1609 km) by jet (accident)
  • flying 6000 miles (9656 km) by jet (cancer from cosmic radiation)
  • receiving one 10mrem chest X-ray in a good hospital (cancer from radiation)
  • taking 1 ecstasy tablet

Hang gliding involves a risk of eight micromorts per trip while scuba diving involves five and a parachute jump (in the US) is about 17.

See also

References

  1. Howard, R. A. (1980). J. Richard, C. Schwing, Walter A. Albers (ed.). On making life and death decisions. Societal Risk Assessment: How Safe Is Safe Enough? General Motors Research Laboratories. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN 0306405547.{{cite conference}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
  2. Howard, R. A. (1989). "Microrisks for Medical Decision Analysis". International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care. 5 (3): 357–370. doi:10.1017/S026646230000742X. PMID 10295520.
  3. Russell, Stuart; Norvig, Peter (2009). Artificial Intelligence (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall. p. 616. ISBN 0136042597.
  4. ONS Mortality statistics , UK Office of National Statistics 2009, ISSN 1757–1375, accessed 2010-12-08
  5. http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/sdrmda61w/session10b/slides/sld031.htm
  6. Wilson, Richard. "Analyzing the Risks of Daily Life". Technology Review. Retrieved 2011-03-16.
  7. ^ Spiegelhalter, David (10 February 2009). "230 miles in a car equates to one micromort: The agony and Ecstasy of risk-taking". London: The Times. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
  8. "Radiation and Risk". Idaho State University. Retrieved 2011-03-16.
  9. http://www.skydivingmagazine.com/faq.htm

Further reading

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