UK vs US death rate review. re:gun control

[Stankeye]

I apologize for another thread about gun violence/control, but it was not my intention.​

I was reviewing the CDC statistics for 2010 Mortality (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/deaths_2010_release.pdf) to get a grasp on the issue of gun deaths and gun control as it stands. Several posters from other countries have signified we have a rate of gun violence that exceeds other western countries. For comparison I chose to look at the UK as their WHO data was easily accessible, and the comparison has been used before.​

All figures for statistics will be per 100,000 for ease of comparison. If anyone has any new numbers it would be great if we could follow that convention to keep things clear.​

According to wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate) they have the firearm related deaths for the US at 10.2. Doing a quick check of the 2010 death rates in the CDC document above, that checks out. 6.3 for suicide, 3.6 for homicide, 0.2 for accidental, and 0.1 for legal intervention.​

For the UK the firearm related deaths were 0.25, which according to WHO is also correct.​

According to www.cia.gov world factbook the death rate for the following countries is as follows:​

Direct link https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2066rank.html​

UK Rank 60 – 933/100,000 The WHO had it at 908 for 2010​

US Rank 84 - 840/100,000 The CDC had it at 799 for 2010​

I don’t know why there was a discrepancy between the WHO/CDC and the CIA webpage. It may have to do with the CIA taking data mid year.​

The numbers of deaths for each country had me wondering with all our gun deaths why we were not higher than the UK.​

For that I had to use the WHO data for the UK again and try to compare that with the CDC data. The CDC uses the same codes but tended to lump stuff together where the WHO had it coded with the individual numbers.​

One thing is for sure, the people from the UK don’t kill each other or themselves at the rate we do. Our suicide rate is 12.4 theirs is 6.8. Assault (homicide) is 5.3 here vs 0.29.​

We are also about 3x as likely to die in transport accidents. We’re at 12.3 while they are at 3.6.​

The UK has a 5.6pt difference for suicides, 5pt difference for homicides, and 8.7pt difference in vehicle deaths. That is a 19.3pt difference. That’s not counting the ~100pt difference from the death rate ranking above. ​

I pulled all the data from the WHO page for the UK for any code from A00-R99, which is all medical deaths. That totaled 875.8, with the balance 33.1 being accidents, murders, suicides and such.​

For the US I did the same using the CDC data. The US came in at 740.2 for medical deaths with the balance of 59.3 being accidents, murders, suicides and such.​

The difference of the US 59.3 vs the UK 33.1 is almost exactly the difference noted between our suicide, homicide, and vehicular deaths. The 6.9 I am missing is probably accidental falls and poisoning. (side note) I found the rate of accidental poisoning in the US strangely high at 10.7 with a rate of 21.5 in the 45-54 age range being the high area and not children.​

The thing I found most surprising, that I was not looking for, was the medical death difference of 135.6 more in the UK vs the US.​

 

[Lowpro]

A quick response now is that the US an accidental poisonings have increased dramatically mostly through prescription overdose related deaths, both acute and chronic such as liver damage deaths from poisonings. This includes alcohol as well but refer to toxicology reports. That may give you a good guideline.

 

[Stankeye]

A quick response now is that the US an accidental poisonings have increased dramatically mostly through prescription overdose related deaths, both acute and chronic such as liver damage deaths from poisonings. This includes alcohol as well but refer to toxicology reports. That may give you a good guideline.

I see that and it makes sense. I just did the UK numbers for the same ICD code range as the CDC uses for the US and they came out at 3.09 vs our 10.7 for accidental poisoning.

Again our "Accident" numbers are higher for some reason. Maybe this is all a safety and educational issue? It doesn't make sense that the US as a group compared to the UK would be more inclined to kill ourselves accidentally.

 

[kellyb]

Again our "Accident" numbers are higher for some reason. Maybe this is all a safety and educational issue? It doesn't make sense that the US as a group compared to the UK would be more inclined to kill ourselves accidentally.

Is that accident minus auto accidents?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

It looks as though you aren't taking age into account. Birth and immigration rates are likely to be higher in the US, which would lead to a younger population. Young people are less likely than old people to die of old age or disease, but they're more likely to die of accidents.

 

[Stankeye]

Is that accident minus auto accidents?

I don't believe so. All of our numbers are higher in the accidental death category, including vehicular. The quote you quoted was in regard to accidental poisoning specifically though, which was correctly pointed out to me to include prescription drugs as well as alcohol.

To W.D.Clinger - Yes I did not filter for age, which may account for both the accidental deaths being higher in the US and the medical deaths being higher in the UK. I was just using absolute numbers. I may spend more time looking at that to see if that is a good assumption as both the WHO and the CDC have the rates for age categories.

 

[Lowpro]

To clarify accidental overdose in the USA from drugs follows a particular set of codes from liver damage due to overdose so you would need to break that down. For instance acetaminophen overdose from loritabs are not considered prescription drug overdose many times.

Also accidental overdoses are not treated as suicides. Again acetaminophen poisoning is an example. It is not treated as a prescription drug overdose but is treated as liver damage related death because glutathione levels may not be examined and and acetomenophin overdose can be acute

 

[Weak Kitten]

Is there a reluctance in the UK to list deaths as suicide? That could fudge the numbers slightly and account for the odd increase in "accidents".

 

[Puppycow]

The numbers of deaths for each country had me wondering with all our gun deaths why we were not higher than the UK.​

This is very simple: everyone dies eventually, of old age if nothing else.
W.D.Clinger points out, correctly:

It looks as though you aren't taking age into account. Birth and immigration rates are likely to be higher in the US, which would lead to a younger population. Young people are less likely than old people to die of old age or disease, but they're more likely to die of accidents.

Median age in US: 37.1 years (in 2012)
Median age in UK: 40.2 years (in 2012)

The page for the death rate by country also explains this:

This indicator is significantly affected by age distribution, and most countries will eventually show a rise in the overall death rate, in spite of continued decline in mortality at all ages, as declining fertility results in an aging population.

Over a long enough time period the death rate will be 100,000 per 100,000 in all countries.

 

[The Don]

Simple answer is that our death rates are broadly similar because life expectancy is broadly similar. Those people who aren't being killed by firearms, suicide or transport accidents are instead dying when much older (or more specifically the people popping their clogs in their 70's and 80's are the ones who didn't die 40 or 50 years ago).

The other factor is that firearms deaths, suicides and transport accidents are still a comparatively small proportion of deaths overall. Every year 2-3 million people die in the U.S., the vast majority of these are from medically related causes.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

 

[MikeG]

Is there a reluctance in the UK to list deaths as suicide? That could fudge the numbers slightly and account for the odd increase in "accidents".

No. There is no such "reluctance". Coroner's courts decide which deaths are suicide.

 

[MikeG]

I don't believe so. All of our numbers are higher in the accidental death category, including vehicular. ....

I imagine, without any statistics to back it up, that our greater reliance on public transport (especially trains, underground and buses) is a factor here. Americans are (in)famous over here for driving everywhere, even if the shops are only 100 yards away, and whether that stereotype is realistic will be obvious in the statistics. Which I haven't time to look for.

Mike

 

[MikeG]

Assault (homicide) is 5.3 here vs 0.29.

Isn't this the most interesting statistic of all? Don't put that down as a "5 point difference".......that's a massive 18.3 times as many people are murdered each year in the US compared with the UK (per 100,000 people).

 

[MikeG]

........Over a long enough time period the death rate will be 100,000 per 100,000 in all countries.

True, but that isn't the basis on which statistics are compiled. They are on the basis of "per hundred thousand people per annum".

Mike

 

[The Don]

I imagine, without any statistics to back it up, that our greater reliance on public transport (especially trains, underground and buses) is a factor here. Americans are (in)famous over here for driving everywhere, even if the shops are only 100 yards away, and whether that stereotype is realistic will be obvious in the statistics. Which I haven't time to look for.

Mike

The US is a much bigger country too so maybe US residents travel much further each year. I'll try to see whether I can find "per mile" death rates.

 

[Tolls]

The US is a much bigger country too so maybe US residents travel much further each year. I'll try to see whether I can find "per mile" death rates.

That's the impression I get from various forums.
All anecdotal, but US drivers seem to view 100 mile commutes as nothing abnormal.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

That's the impression I get from various forums.
All anecdotal, but US drivers seem to view 100 mile commutes as nothing abnormal.

Really? A have a couple of American colleagues who've come over here to work and they were absolutely determined to live near the office and seemed quite surprised by my relatively modest 30 miles each way.

 

[The Don]

From here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_safety_in_the_United_States

To compare typical risks, one can use the U.S. average fatal automobile accident rate of 1.5 per 100 million vehicle-miles for 2000[1] and the U.S. average fatal scheduled airline accident rate of 0.18 per million flight segments for 1995-2005:[5]

In the UK from this source...

http://webarchive.nationalarchives....s/datatablespublications/tsgb/edition2006.pdf

the rate is roughly 223 per billion passenger kilometers (including all road users including cylcists and pedestrians)


edited to add........

For cars the rate is 2.9 per billion passenger kilometers, so that's around 0.5 per 100 million vehicle miles.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

No. There is no such "reluctance". Coroner's courts decide which deaths are suicide.

In suicide research, it is normal practice to include both suicide and open verdicts when studying suicide because of international differences in recording suicide.

 

[MikeG]

In suicide research, it is normal practice to include both suicide and open verdicts when studying suicide because of international differences in recording suicide.

Is it? I didn't know that.

This leads to the observation that an open verdict can arise where the coroner isn't sure whether the death was from, say, natural causes or murder, or in cases where no body is ever found. So the inclusion of these cases might be skewing the suicide comparison somewhat.

Mike