Micromort

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A micromort is a measure of risk and indicates a 0.000001 (one in a million) chance of dying . The riskiness of activities or circumstances can be specified in micromort. A micro-likelihood (microprobability) is a probability of one in a million that a particular event occurs; a micromort is accordingly the micro-probability of death. The micromort was proposed in 1980 by the decision theorist Ronald A. Howard .

Decision analysis application

risk assessment

One application of micromorts is to measure human risk assessments. For example, one can look at the financial sum for which a respondent is willing to die with a probability of 1 in a million (or the sum that someone is willing to pay to avoid such a probability). In response to such direct inquiries, large sums are quoted, but everyday decisions (e.g. the price people are willing to pay for additional security in their car) can yield values ​​of around $ 50 (in 2009).

Baseline

The average risk of dying on a given day can be derived from the average life span. For example, if it is 80 years, there is one death for every 29,200 days. This results in around 34 micromort per day. This is just a cross-section of the population: the number of micromort per day varies for population groups of different ages, genders or lifestyles. Alternatively, the number of people who die each day ( around 2500 in the UK ) can be divided by the total population (60 million). All types of death are also taken into account here. By excluding natural deaths, the risk of premature death can be measured, which is around one micromort (in the UK, around 50 unnatural deaths per day).

Risk factors

The following risk factors are roughly equivalent to a micromortage because they trigger the following causes of death with a certain measurable probability:

  • 1.4 smoking cigarettes ( cancer , heart disease )
  • Drink 0.5 liters of wine ( cirrhosis of the liver )
  • spend an hour in a coal mine ( dust lung )
  • to spend three hours in a coal mine ( accident )
  • live two days in New York or Boston (1979) ( air pollution )
  • living in Denver for two months (cancer from cosmic rays )
  • living with a smoker for two months (cancer, heart disease)
  • Live within 32 km of a nuclear power plant for 150 years (cancer from radiation)
  • drink Miami drinking water for a year (cancer from chlorine)
  • 100 roasted over charcoal steaks eating (cancer by benzopyrene )
  • Eat 40 tablespoons of peanut butter (liver cancer from aflatoxin B )
  • 6 minutes canoeing (accident)
  • Ride a motorcycle for 10 km (accident)
  • 32 km by bike (accident)
  • Drive 370 km by car (accident)
  • Fly 1609 km by plane (accident)
  • Fly 9,656 km by plane (Cancer from cosmic rays)
  • 9656 km by train (accident)
  • undergo a modern x-ray examination (cancer from radiation)
  • consume one MDMA (ecstasy) tablet

A dive with a breathing apparatus corresponds to about five micromorts, a parachute jump (in the USA) about 7. A caesarean section counts 170, a bypass operation 16,000 micromorts. The risk of climbing Mount Everest was calculated at 35,000 micromorts.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ RA Howard : On making life and death decisions . In: Richard C. Schwing, Walter A. Albers (Eds.): Societal Risk Assessment: How Safe Is Safe Enough? General Motors Research Laboratories . Plenum Press, New York 1980, ISBN 0-306-40554-7 .
  2. ↑ RA Howard : Micro Risks for Medical Decision Analysis . In: International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care . 5, No. 3, 1989, pp. 357-370. doi : 10.1017 / S026646230000742X . PMID 10295520 .
  3. ↑ Stuart Russel, Peter Norvig: Artificial Intelligence , 3rd. Edition, Prentice Hall, 2009, ISBN 0-13-604259-7 , p. 616.
  4. ^ ONS Mortality statistics , UK Office of National Statistics 2009, ISSN  1757-1375 , accessed August 24, 2013
  5. ↑ stanford-online.stanford.edu ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / stanford-online.stanford.edu
  6. ↑ tobaccodocuments.org ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tobaccodocuments.org
  7. ↑ a b c d e f David Spiegelhalter : 230 miles in a car equates to one micromort: The agony and Ecstasy of risk-taking , The Times . February 10, 2009. Retrieved April 19, 2009. 
  8. ↑ uspa.org (English)
  9. ↑ Der Spiegel 22/2016, p. 70: One to one million

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