How we die
Remember all those sci-fi stories where people learn the date and cause of their own death? “Life-Line” by Robert Heinlein is one that pops to mind, but there are many others.
Well, you may not be able to tell when you will die, but you can make a pretty good guess what you may die of, based on age-related statistics published by the CDC. The latest final statistics are for 2001, so this is based on those numbers. The complete report can be found here: Leading causes of death for 2001
Note for clarity: percentages given in the samples
below are the percent of the total people in a given age group
that actually died in 2001, not the percentage of all people
in that age group.
Note 2 : 2001 data includes the 3028 deaths they
were certain of by the publish date of the statistics caused by the terror
attacks on September 11. Of these, 2,922 are classified as homicides and 4
as suicides. Only residents of the United States are counted in these statistics.
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