Five Ways to Ease the Burden of Your Passing

Nobody likes to plan for when bad things happen. But not doing so can put more stress on your nearest and dearest at a time of grief or worry.

Taking a few simple steps now to plan ahead, while you’re of sound mind and body, can ease the burden on your loved ones – and failure to do so usually compounds their pain. This month, the latest edition of If Something Should Happen: How to Organize Your Financial and Legal Affairs was published by the American Institute for Economic Research.

These tips will help individuals pull all their information together into one easy-to-understand workbook. Here are a few of the more important steps to take, sooner rather than later.

See more at AIER.

Middle-Aged White Americans Are Dying of Despair

Since 1998, people all over the world have been living healthier and living longer. But middle-aged, white non-Hispanics in the United States have been getting sicker and dying in greater numbers. The trend is being driven primarily by people with a high-school degree or less.

That's the sobering takeaway from a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published this week.

The reasons for the increased death rate are not the usual things that kill Americans, like diabetes and heart disease. Rather, it’s suicide, alcohol and drug poisonings, and alcohol-related liver disease.

The least-educated are worst off.

More from The Atlantic.

What we're seeing here, I believe, is the end result of privileged distress. It's still not objectively harder to be white in American than non-white, but the traditional privileges of whiteness have shrunk, particularly for the working class, while visions of how life is supposed to be (for white people) are pegged to the achievements of our parents. Consequently, it gets harder and harder for working-class whites to live up to the expectations they were raised to have. By middle age many feel like failures, and live with a corresponding lack of self-regard.

Is it any wonder they look for scapegoats?

More from the Weekly Sift.

What Are The Demographics Of Heaven?

As you might expect, that total number of dead people has grown a lot over time. The U.S. Census Bureau has collected several of the sources for historical world population rates. The estimates differ for two major reasons — the demographers don’t all agree about which date to take as the starting point for human life, and they also estimate population growth differently...

Most of those people who have been born are no longer with us. What’s really fascinating, though, is how the dead-to-living ratio is expected to change in the future. By 2050, the world’s population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion. Which means that in 35 years’ time, the living would make up 8.6 percent of those who have ever been born. And the dead would outnumber the living 11 to 1.

More from FiveThirtyEight

Motor vehicle crash deaths differ widely among the 50 states and DC

There were 30,057 fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States in 2013 in which 32,719 deaths occurred. This resulted in national motor vehicle crash death rates of 10.3 deaths per 100,000 people and 1.11 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. The fatality rate per 100,000 people ranged from a low of 3.1 in the District of Columbia to a high of 22.6 in Montana.

More from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Journalists killed in the last decade, by country

From GlobalPost:

When James Foley was executed last week by the Islamic State, he became the 32nd journalist killed in 2014, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

CPJ has been documenting every work-related death of a media member since 1992. We've used CPJ's data to create the graphic below, which provides information about the journalists killed around the world in the last decade.

CPJ defines journalists as "people who cover news or comment on public affairs through any media — including in print, in photographs, on radio, on television, and online." That includes staff journalists, freelancers, stringers, bloggers, and citizen journalists.

The numbers we've used total the cases CPJ defines as "motive confirmed," meaning the death is directly related to the individual's work as a journalist.

World Births and Deaths, Simulated in Real-Time

If you hover over a particular country you can watch its births and deaths separately.

Also downloadable as an app!

From Google Drive.

Surviving the First Day : State of the World's Mothers 2013

From Save the Children:

More than 1 million babies die on the first day of life – making the birth day the most dangerous day for babies in nearly every country, rich and poor alike. This is one of the major findings of Save the Children’s 14th annual State of the World’s Mothers report. The findings indicate, as never before, that helping babies survive the first day – and the first week – of life represents the greatest remaining challenge in reducing child mortality and meeting the ambitious Millennium Development Goal of reducing 1990 child mortality rates by two- thirds by 2015.

The world has made unprecedented progress since 1990 in reducing maternal and child deaths. Working together, governments, communities, nongovernmental organizations and families have reduced the annual number of children under 5 who die each year by over 40 percent – from 12 million to 6.9 million. Progress for mothers has been even greater, with deaths declining almost 50 percent since 1990 – from 543,000 to 287,000 per year.

But we have made much less progress for the children who are the most vulnerable of all – newborns. In 2011, 3 million babies died in their first month of life. This is 43 percent of all deaths of children under age 5 worldwide. Three-quarters of those newborns died in the first week of their lives, and one-third did not survive their first day of life.

Geovisualization: Simulation of U.S. Births and Deaths

One of our Data Detectives thought you might enjoy having a look at a simulation of births and deaths across the US. It appeared in Atlantic Cities magazine. To start the simulation, in the text below the map, at the end of the second paragraph, click on the phrase "click here to begin it" link.

Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2011

From the National Center for Health Statistics

The age-adjusted death rate decreased from 747.0 deaths per 100,000 population in 2010 to 740.6 deaths per 100,000 population in 2011. From 2010 to 2011, age-adjusted death rates decreased significantly for 5 of the 15 leading causes of death: Diseases of heart, Malignant neoplasms, Cerebrovascular diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, and Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis. The age-adjusted death rate increased for 6 leading causes of death: Chronic lower respiratory diseases, Diabetes mellitus, Influenza and pneumonia, Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, Parkinson's disease, and Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids. Life expectancy remained the same in 2011 as it had been in 2010 at 78.7 years.

Reports on Oral Health; Hypertension; Hospital Costs; Causes of Death

Selected Oral Health Indicators in the United States, 2005–2008 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Expenditures for Hypertension among Adults Age 18 and Older, 2009: Estimates for the U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey

Components of Cost Increases for Inpatient Hospital Procedures, 1997-2009 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Deaths: Leading Causes for 2008 from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Searching Your US Military Ancestry With Newly Released Records

by Cara Meadows
Following on from this important article on the release of the 1940 US Census here, Ancestry.com has paved the way for even more in-depth family history research with the release of a set of vitally important War Service Records dating from as far back as 1850. These records are a great and vital resource to anyone wanting to trace the more recent history of their ancestors and also trace the military pasts of their forebears much further back.
With Family History, Genealogy and Military History in particular becoming an increasingly popular hobby for many people, researchers are opting to take genealogical vacations in different countries rather than other pursuits such as going on a Mediterranean Cruise or a long beach vacation somewhere. This rise in popularity has seen a concurrent rise in demand for online services and also increasing access to archives and repositories all over the US.
New Record Releases
The US Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS (Beneficiary Identification Records Locater Subsystem) Death Records contain some 14,465,024 entries starting in the year 1850 and coming as far forward as 2010.

The Changing Profile of Autopsied Deaths in the US, 1972–2007

National Center for Health Statistics [PDF]

In 1972, almost 1 out of 5 deaths were autopsied. From 1972 through 2003, however, the autopsy rate dropped 58 percent from 19.3 percent to 8.1 percent. Although the autopsy rate has increased slightly since 2003, only 8.5 percent, or fewer than 1 out of 10 deaths, were autopsied in 2007.

Death in the United States, 2009

From the National Center for Health Statistics [PDF]

Mortality in the United States is best summarized by the age-adjusted death
rate—a measure that accounts for changes in the age distribution of the
population. This rate has declined in an almost uninterrupted manner since
1960. The death rate is now 45 percent lower than in 1960 (declining from
1,339.2 per 100,000 standard population in 1960 to 741.0 in 2009).
Although age-adjusted mortality has declined for all demographic groups
over a period of many decades, long-standing gaps between black and white
populations and between male and female populations have begun to narrow
only since the mid-1990s. Many of the recent improvements in death rates
and life expectancy for all population groups can be attributed to ongoing
reductions in death rates from major causes of death, such as heart disease,
cancer, stroke, and chronic lower respiratory diseases.

USFA Releases Provisional 2010 Firefighter Fatality Statistics

The United States Fire Administration (USFA) announced this week there were 85 on-duty firefighter fatalities in the United States as a result of incidents that occurred in 2010, a 6 percent decrease from the 90 fatalities reported for 2009. The 85 fatalities were spread across 31 states. Illinois experienced the highest number of fatalities (9). In addition to Illinois, only New York (8), Ohio (8), Pennsylvania (7), and Kansas (5) had 5 or more firefighter fatalities.

Capital Punishment, 2008 – Statistical Tables Released

Presents characteristics of persons under sentence of death on December 31, 2008, and persons executed in 2008. Preliminary data on executions by states during 2009 are included. Tables present state-by-state information on the movement of prisoners into and out of death sentence status during 2008, status of capital statutes, and methods of execution. Numerical tables also summarize data on offender characteristics such as gender, race, Hispanic origin, age at time of arrest for capital offense, legal status at time of capital offense, and time between imposition of death sentence and execution. Data are from the National Prisoner Statistics (NPS-8) series.

Fatal work injuries down

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

A total of 5,071 fatal work injuries were recorded in the United States in 2008, down from a total of 5,657 fatal work injuries reported for 2007. While the 2008 results are preliminary, this figure represents the smallest annual preliminary total since the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program was first conducted in 1992. Final results for 2008 will be released in April 2010.

Based on these preliminary counts, the rate of fatal injury for U.S. workers in 2008 was 3.6 fatal work injuries per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers, down from the final rate of 4.0 in 2007.

+ Full Report

Carnegie Mellon researchers develop tool to rank death rates

Source: Carnegie Mellon University

Have you ever wondered what the chances are that you may die in the next year? Would it be from illness or an accident? Is it something you can control? Or is it completely out of your hands?

A new Web site, www.DeathRiskRankings.com, developed by researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University, allows users to query publicly available data from the United States and Europe, and compare mortality risks by gender, age, cause of death and geographic region. The Web site not only gives the risk of dying within the next year, but it also ranks the probable causes and allows for quick side-by-side comparison between groups.

Suppose you wanted to know who is more likely to die next year from breast cancer, a 54-year-old Pennsylvania woman or her counterpart in the United Kingdom.

“This is the only place to look,” said Paul Fischbeck, site developer and professor of social and decision sciences and engineering and public policy (EPP) at Carnegie Mellon. “It turns out that the British woman has a 33 percent higher risk of breast cancer death. But for lung/throat cancer, the results are almost reversed, and the Pennsylvania woman has a 29 percent higher risk.”

“Most Americans don’t have a particularly good understanding of their own mortality risks, let alone ranking of their relevant risks,” said David Gerard, a former EPP professor at Carnegie Mellon who is now an associate professor of economics at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.

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.”

Life Expectancy at All Time High; Death Rates Reach New Low, New Report Shows

Source: National Center for Health Statistics (CDC)

U.S. life expectancy reached nearly 78 years (77.9), and the age-adjusted death rate dropped to 760.3 deaths per 100,000 population, both records, according to the latest mortality statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The report, Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2007, was issued this week by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The data are based on nearly 90 percent of death certificates in the United States.

The 2007 increase in life expectancy – up from 77.7 in 2006 — represents a continuation of a trend. Over a decade, life expectancy has increased 1.4 years from 76.5 years in 1997 to 77.9 in 2007.

See also Births: Preliminary Data for 2007.

Cancer Death Rate Steadily Declining

Cancer death rates are falling steadily, according to the American Cancer Society’s annual cancer statistics report, Cancer Facts & Figures 2009, and its companion article “Cancer Statistics, 2009,” published in the Society’s CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. The drop is driven in large part by better prevention, increased use of early detection practices, and improved treatments for cancer.

Cancer death rates dropped 19.2% among men during 1990-2005 and 11.4% among women during 1991-2005. Cancer incidence rates are also on the decline – they decreased 1.8% per year among men from 2001-2005 and 0.6% per year from 1998-2005 among women.

Births and Deaths by Month, 1995-2002

This ABC News story from 2005 I came across while looking for something else.