Looking up statistics on the chance of dying due to murder (0.9%) I
found http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/99facts/99sheets/97mortal.htm
(which links to the PDF file with the actual report).
Surprisingly to me, age-adjusted death rates have declined about 20%
since 1980. The age-adjusted death rate is what the death rate would
be if the age makeup of the population hadn't changed. It factors out
changes in the age demographics.
This means basically that you have a 20% less chance of dying in any
given year today than you did in 1980. That's a substantial increase,
but it's been a pretty stable trend throughout this century. Figure 1
in the PDF file shows the trend since 1930.
The longevity statistics don't show such a dramatic improvement, I suppose
because the chance of dying gets to be so high in the 70s and 80s that
few people live beyond that, even if there is improvement in survival.
The details are shown in Figure 2. For people in their 20s and 30s
the death rate was actually climbing through the 80s and early 90s,
probably due to AIDS. Since the mid 90s it has fallen precipitously,
with almost a 10% improvement just from 1996 to 1997.
If you want to live, it is a good idea to know how people die. Some
interesting statistics here.
Hal
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