Micromort

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A micromort (from micro- and mortality) is a unit of risk defined as a one-in-a-million chance of death. [1] [2] Micromorts can be used to measure the 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. [3]

Contents

Micromorts for future activities can only be rough assessments, as specific circumstances will always have an impact. However, past historical rates of events can be used to provide a rough estimate.

Sample values

Baseline

Death fromContextTime periodN deathsN populationMicromorts per unit of exposureReference
All causesEngland and Wales2012499,33156,567,00024 per day
8,800 per year		ONS Deaths [4] Table 5.
Canada2011242,07433,476,68820 per day
7,200 per year		Statistics Canada [5]
US20102,468,435308,500,00022 per day
8,000 per year		CDC Deaths [6] Table 18.
Non-natural causeEngland and Wales201217,46256,567,0000.8 per day
300 per year		ONS Deaths [4] Table 5.19.
US2010180,000308,500,0001.6 per day
580 per year		CDC Deaths [6] Table 18
Non-natural cause (excluding suicide)England and Wales201212,95556,567,0000.6 per day
230 per year		ONS Suicides [7]
US2010142,000308,500,0001.3 per day
460 per year		CDC Deaths [6] Table 18.
All causes – first day of lifeEngland and Wales2007430 per first day of lifeWalker, 2014 [8]
US201316.7 per day
6100 per year		CDC Life Tables [9]
Blastland & Spiegelhalter, 2014 [10]
Murder/homicideEngland and Wales2012/1355156,567,00010 per yearONS Crime [11]
Homicide Canada201152733,476,68815 per yearStatistics Canada [12]
Murder and non-negligent manslaughter US201214,173292,000,00048 per yearFBI [13] Table 16

Leisure and sport

Death fromContextTime periodN deathsN exposureMicromorts per unit of exposureReference
Scuba diving UK: BSAC members1998–20097514,000,000 dives5 per diveBSAC [14]
UK: non-BSAC1998–200912212,000,000 dives10 per diveBSAC [14]
US – insured members of DAN2000–20061871,131,367 members164 per year as member of DAN
5 per dive		DAN [15] p75
Paragliding Turkey2004–201118242,355 flights74 per launchCanbek 2015 [16]
Skiing US2008/93957,000,000 days skiing0.7 per daySki-injury.com [17] [ unreliable source ]
Skydiving US2000–201641348,600,000 jumps8 per jumpUSPA [18]
UK1994–2013414,864,268 jumps8 per jumpBPA [19]
BASE jumping Kjerag Massif, Norway1995–2005920,850 jumps430 per jumpSoreide 2007 [20]
Mountaineering Ascent to Matterhorn1981–2011213about 75,000 ascents

(about 2500 per year)

about 2,840 per ascent attemptBachmann 2012 [21]
Ascent to Mt. Everest1922–20122235,656 successful ascents37,932 per successful ascentNASA 2013 [22]

Travel

Activities that increase the death risk by roughly one micromort, and their associated cause of death:

Other

Increase in death risk for other activities on a per-event basis:

Value of a micromort

Willingness to pay

An application of micromorts is measuring the value that humans place on risk. For example, a person can consider the amount of money they would be willing to pay to avoid a one-in-a-million chance of death (or conversely, the amount of money they would receive to accept a one-in-a-million chance of death). When offered this situation, people claim a high number. However, when looking at their day-to-day actions (e.g., how much they are willing to pay for safety features on cars), a typical value for a micromort is around $50 (in 2009). [32] [33] This is not to say the $50 valuation should be taken to mean that a human life (1 million micromorts) is valued at $50,000,000. Rather, people are less inclined to spend money after a certain point to increase their safety. This means that analyzing risk using the micromort is more useful when using small risks, not necessarily large ones. [33]

Value of a statistical life

Government agencies use a nominal Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) – or Value for Preventing a Fatality (VPF) – to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of expenditure on safeguards. For example, in the UK, the VSL is £1 million  GBP in 1997 value (equivalent to £2 million in 2023 [34] ). [35] Since road improvements have the effect of lowering the risk of large numbers of people by a small amount, the UK Department for Transport essentially prices a reduction of 1 micromort at £1.60. The US Department of Transportation uses a VSL of US$6.2 million, pricing a micromort at US$6.20. [36]

Chronic risks

Micromorts are best used to measure the size of acute risks, i.e. immediate deaths. Risks from lifestyle, exposure to air pollution, and so on are chronic risks, in that they do not kill straight away, but reduce life expectancy. Ron Howard included such risks in his original 1979 work, [24] for example, an additional one micromort from:

Such risks are better expressed using the related concept of a microlife.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ however due to the health effects of cycling the net effect of cycling on life expectancy is likely positive in most cases [25]

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References

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  2. ↑ Walker, KF; Cohen, AL; Walker, SS; Allen, KM; Baines, DL; Thornton, Jg (May 2014). "The dangers of the day of birth". BJOG. 121 (6): 714–718. doi:10.1111/1471-0528.12544. PMID   24521517. S2CID   24808758.
  3. ↑ Howard, R. A. (1980). J. Richard; C. Schwing; Walter A. Albers (eds.). On making life and death decisions. Societal Risk Assessment: How Safe Is Safe Enough? General Motors Research Laboratories. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN   0306405547.
  4. 1 2 "Deaths Registered in England and Wales (Series DR), 2012" (PDF). Office for National Statistics. 22 October 2013. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
  5. ↑ "Leading causes of death, by sex (Both sexes)". Statistics Canada. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
  6. 1 2 3 SL Murphy; J Xu & KD Kochanek (8 May 2013). "Deaths: Final Data for 2010" (PDF). US: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Archived (PDF) from the original on 11 May 2015. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
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  17. ↑ Ski-injury.com. "Ski Injury". Archived from the original on 28 May 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  18. ↑ United States Parachute Association. "Skydiving Safety". Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 10 April 2018.
  19. ↑ British Parachute Association (2012). "How Safe". Archived from the original on 27 July 2014. Retrieved 12 June 2014.
  20. ↑ Soreide, Kjetil; Ellingsen, Christian Lycke; Knutson, Vibeke (May 2007). "How Dangerous is BASE Jumping? An Analysis of Adverse Events in 20,850 Jumps From the Kjerag Massif, Norway". The Journal of Trauma: Injury, Infection, and Critical Care. 62 (5): 1113–1117. doi:10.1097/01.ta.0000239815.73858.88. PMID   17495709.
  21. ↑ Bachmann, Stefan (September 2012). "Tod am Matterhorn" (PDF). Beobachter (in German).
  22. ↑ "The World's Tallest Mountain". Earth Observatory. NASA. 2 January 2014. Archived from the original on 25 October 2014. Retrieved 25 October 2014.
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  24. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
  25. ↑ de Hartog, Jeroen Johan; Boogaard, Hanna; Nijland, Hans; Hoek, Gerard (August 2010). "Do the Health Benefits of Cycling Outweigh the Risks?". Environmental Health Perspectives. 118 (8): 1109–1116. doi:10.1289/ehp.0901747. PMC   2920084 . PMID   20587380.
  26. ↑ Safety Overview 2023 (PDF) (Report). European Union Agency For Railways. March 2023. p. 7, fig. 6.
  27. ↑ "MDMA ('ecstasy'): a review of its harms and classification under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971". London: Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. 2009. p. 18. Archived from the original on 5 October 2012 – via Internet Archive.
  28. ↑ Blastland, Michael; Spiegelhalter, David (2014). The Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers About Danger and Death (1 ed.). Basic Books. p. 8. ISBN   9780465085705.
  29. 1 2 Spiegelhalter, David; Blastland, Michael (30 May 2013). The Norm Chronicles: Stories and numbers about danger (Main ed.). London: Profile Books. ISBN   9781846686207.
  30. ↑ Nina Weber, DER SPIEGEL (22 April 2021). "Coronaimpfung und Risikoabwägung: Einmal impfen ist weniger riskant als eine Woche Skiurlaub". Der Spiegel (in German). Archived from the original on 18 February 2022. Retrieved 11 June 2021.
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  32. ↑ 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. S2CID   37558060.
  33. 1 2 Russell, Stuart; Norvig, Peter (2009). Artificial Intelligence (3rd ed.). Prentice Hall. p. 616. ISBN   978-0-13-604259-4.
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  37. ↑ "Radiation dose issues and risk" (PDF). European Society of Radiology. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 February 2014. Retrieved 18 November 2013.

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