Comparative Risk

[The White Coat Investor]

One of my partners (a back-country skier) sent me this.



It talks about comparative risks. At the bottom is getting out of bed at age 20. That's a 1. Compared to that, climbing an 8,000 meter peak is 12,000. Backcountry skiing using typical safety measures is a 4. Running a marathon is 8- the same as sky diving. Commuting on a motorcycle? 60.

FYI- Centerpunching refers to going right down the middle of a slope rather than trying the sides first to make sure they don't slide.

Anything on the list that surprises you?

[WallStreetPhysician]

The White Coat Investor wrote:

One of my partners (a back-country skier) sent me this.



It talks about comparative risks. At the bottom is getting out of bed at age 20. That’s a 1. Compared to that, climbing an 8,000 meter peak is 12,000. Backcountry skiing using typical safety measures is a 4. Running a marathon is 8- the same as sky diving. Commuting on a motorcycle? 60.

FYI- Centerpunching refers to going right down the middle of a slope rather than trying the sides first to make sure they don’t slide.

Anything on the list that surprises you?

Click to expand...

This is why your disability insurance is more expensive, WCI!

What's not on this list is the risk of dying in a plane crash. It wouldn't surprise me if it was 1.05 or 1.1. Despite the statistics, many people will refuse to fly and drive instead, even though they are more likely to die driving to a destination than flying.

[Hatton]

I guess it is time to start BASE jumping since it is not as dangerous as 8 hours on a motorcycle! I am a very risk averse person and approaching 60 so the only activities on that list that I regularly do is get out of bed and drive a car one hour per day.  I was surprised by the risks of marathon running.

[PhysicianOnFIRE]

I'd like to see general anesthesia on the list. I've seen stats that suggest a healthy person has a 1/250,000 chance of death from anesthetic complications. I suppose that would make it a 4.

I like to tell patients they are at higher risk driving to the hospital than they are under our care. Maybe that's only true when we have inclement weather (or bad drivers). Probably true for the cataract patients, anyway.

 

 

 

[ENT Doc]

Getting out of bed at 20...

 

[Zaphod]

Very interesting and mostly what we know, but was different in that it tried to give an exposure level. So flying, driving, diving was all based in units/km/m depth etc...

This wiki page has some cool info on it, its a neat tool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort

[CM]

The White Coat Investor wrote:

One of my partners (a back-country skier) sent me this.



It talks about comparative risks. At the bottom is getting out of bed at age 20. That’s a 1. Compared to that, climbing an 8,000 meter peak is 12,000. Backcountry skiing using typical safety measures is a 4. Running a marathon is 8- the same as sky diving. Commuting on a motorcycle? 60.

FYI- Centerpunching refers to going right down the middle of a slope rather than trying the sides first to make sure they don’t slide.

Anything on the list that surprises you?

Click to expand...

marathon = sky diving. That surprises me.

[jfoxcpacfp]

Yes. Driving a car 8 hours is twice as dangerous as skydiving...of course, the way I drive, that should be a surprise.

[VagabondMD]

hatton1 wrote:

I guess it is time to start BASE jumping since it is not as dangerous as 8 hours on a motorcycle! I am a very risk averse person and approaching 60 so the only activities on that list that I regularly do is get out of bed and drive a car one hour per day.  I was surprised by the risks of marathon running.

Click to expand...

I was surprised by the marathon risk, too. I have run 5 in the past and did not know! My guess is that it is somewhat age-related...that is, the risk of a 60 year old running a marathon must be considerably higher than a 25 year old, assuming that cardiovascular events are the major cause of death in this group.

[Zaphod]

Vagabond MD wrote:

hatton1 wrote:

I guess it is time to start BASE jumping since it is not as dangerous as 8 hours on a motorcycle! I am a very risk averse person and approaching 60 so the only activities on that list that I regularly do is get out of bed and drive a car one hour per day.  I was surprised by the risks of marathon running.

Click to expand…

I was surprised by the marathon risk, too. I have run 5 in the past and did not know! My guess is that it is somewhat age-related…that is, the risk of a 60 year old running a marathon must be considerably higher than a 25 year old, assuming that cardiovascular events are the major cause of death in this group.

Click to expand...

If you look at the wiki page it explains things a bit more and makes some sense. I assume a lot of the same things, that the marathon deaths were those that didnt know (or why would they do it) about an underlying risk that made it unsafe. I also noticed its based off periodic studies and many seem to be older, and it also changes based on geography as you would expect. I will bet as some of these things have changed with more data. The strange one was that walking was more dangerous than cycling (17 mi vs. 20 mi).

A lot of it can be drastically reduced simply by behavior. Obviously walking on the sidewalk of a major thoroughfare is going to have way more risk than around the park or track. For cycling rural roads and night riding are far more likely to end in fatality, and the most dangerous times are rush hour times. Why Im so glad I mostly ride only on the boring old bike path, no cars and I bought a house that is only a few neighborhood blocks to direct access to the path for just this reason. Didnt want to increase risk anymore than I have to, a 20 mi ride is a quick barely an hour ride for me.