micromort

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

• Travelling 6 miles (9.7 km) by motorcycle (collision)
• Travelling 17 miles (27 km) by walking (collision){{cite web|title=Understanding Uncertainty|date=12 July 2010|url=https://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue55/features/risk/index|publisher=Plus Magazine|access-date=22 July 2020|archive-date=4 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804110023/https://plus.maths.org/content/os/issue55/features/risk/index|url-status=live}}
• Travelling 10 miles (16 km) or 20 miles (32 km) by bicycle (collision){{efn|however due to the health effects of cycling the net effect of cycling on life expectancy is likely positive in most cases{{cite journal |last1=de Hartog |first1=Jeroen Johan |last2=Boogaard |first2=Hanna |last3=Nijland |first3=Hans |last4=Hoek |first4=Gerard |title=Do the Health Benefits of Cycling Outweigh the Risks? |journal=Environmental Health Perspectives |date=August 2010 |volume=118 |issue=8 |pages=1109–1116 |doi=10.1289/ehp.0901747 |pmid=20587380 |pmc=2920084 |bibcode=2010EnvHP.118.1109D }}}}
• Travelling 230 miles (370 km) by car (collision) (or 250 miles)
• Travelling 1,000 miles (1,600 km) by jet airplane (collision)
• Travelling 6,000 miles (10,000 km) by train (collision){{cite report|date=March 2023 |title=Safety Overview 2023 |url=https://www.era.europa.eu/system/files/2023-03/Safety%20Overview%202023.pdf |publisher=European Union Agency For Railways |at=p. 7, fig. 6 }}

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

• Hang gliding – 8 micromorts per flight
• Ecstasy (MDMA) – 0.5 micromorts per tablet, rising to 13 if using other drugs{{cite web|publisher=Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs |title= MDMA ('ecstasy'): a review of its harms and classification under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 |location=London|date=2009 |page=18 |url=http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/agencies-public-bodies/acmd1/mdma-report |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121005073938/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/publications/agencies-public-bodies/acmd1/mdma-report |archive-date=5 October 2012 |via=Internet Archive}}{{cite book|last1=Blastland|first1=Michael|last2=Spiegelhalter|first2=David|title=The Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers About Danger and Death|date=2014|publisher=Basic Books|isbn=9780465085705|page=8|edition=1}}
• Giving birth (vaginal) – 120 micromorts{{Cite book|title=The Norm Chronicles: Stories and numbers about danger|last1=Spiegelhalter|first1=David|last2=Blastland|first2=Michael|date=2013-05-30|publisher=Profile Books|isbn=9781846686207|edition=Main |location=London|language=en}}
• Giving birth (caesarean) – 170 micromorts
• AstraZeneca vaccination against COVID-19 – 2.9 micromorts{{cite news|title=Coronaimpfung und Risikoabwägung: Einmal impfen ist weniger riskant als eine Woche Skiurlaub|periodical=|publisher=|url=https://www.spiegel.de/gesundheit/diagnose/corona-impfung-und-risikoabwaegung-einmal-impfen-ist-weniger-riskant-als-eine-woche-skiurlaub-a-6438059e-06e0-4340-add3-cc9b07a5f501|url-status=live|format=|access-date=2021-06-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220218102607/https://www.spiegel.de/gesundheit/diagnose/corona-impfung-und-risikoabwaegung-einmal-impfen-ist-weniger-riskant-als-eine-woche-skiurlaub-a-6438059e-06e0-4340-add3-cc9b07a5f501|archive-date=18 February 2022|last=Nina Weber, DER SPIEGEL|newspaper=Der Spiegel|date=22 April 2021|language=de|pages=|quote=}}
• COVID-19 infection at age 10 – 20 micromorts
• COVID-19 infection at age 25 – 100 micromorts
• COVID-19 infection at age 55 – 4,000 micromorts
• COVID-19 infection at age 65 – 14,000 micromorts
• COVID-19 infection at age 75 – 46,000 micromorts
• COVID-19 infection at age 85 – 150,000 micromorts ({{as of|2020|12}}){{cite journal | vauthors = Levin AT, Hanage WP, Owusu-Boaitey N, Cochran KB, Walsh SP, Meyerowitz-Katz G | title = Assessing the age specificity of infection fatality rates for COVID-19: systematic review, meta-analysis, and public policy implications | journal = European Journal of Epidemiology | volume = 35 | issue = 12 | pages = 1123–1138 | date = December 2020 | pmid = 33289900 | pmc = 7721859 | doi = 10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 | doi-access = free }} 50px Text was copied from this source, which is available under a [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016050101/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |date=16 October 2017 }}.

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).{{cite journal

| last=Howard |first=R. A. |author-link=Ronald A. Howard

| title=Microrisks for Medical Decision Analysis

| journal=International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care

| volume=5

| year=1989

| pages=357–370

| pmid=10295520

| doi=10.1017/S026646230000742X

| issue=3

|s2cid=37558060 }}{{cite book

| last1=Russell |first1=Stuart

|last2=Norvig |first2=Peter

| title=Artificial Intelligence

|edition=3rd

|isbn=978-0-13-604259-4

|publisher=Prentice Hall

| year=2009

|page=616

}} 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.

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 £{{Inflation|GBP|1|1997|r=0}} million in {{Inflation/year|UK}}{{Inflation/fn|UK}}).{{cite book|publisher=Department for Transport |title=Transport analysis guidance |chapter= Unit A4.1: Social Impact Appraisal |date=January 2014 |location=London |author=Government of the United Kingdom |url=https://www.gov.uk/guidance/transport-analysis-guidance-tag|chapter-url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/63a32a8d8fa8f539198d9bf3/TAG_Unit_A4.1_-_Social-impact-appraisal_Nov_2022_Accessible_v1.0.pdf.pdf |page=6 }} 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.US Department of Transportation, "Treatment of the Economic Value of a Statistical Life in Departmental Analyses—2011 Interim Adjustment", 2011, http://www.dot.gov/policy/transportation-policy/treatment-economic-value-statistical-life {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141102191532/http://www.dot.gov/policy/transportation-policy/treatment-economic-value-statistical-life |date=2 November 2014 }}

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, for example, an additional one micromort from:

• Drinking 0.5 liter of wine (cirrhosis of the liver)* Howard, Ron [https://archive.today/20120714164305/http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/sdrmda61w/session10b/slides/sld031.htm Risky Decisions] (Slide show), Stanford University
• Smoking 1.4 cigarettes (cancer, heart disease)
• Spending 1 hour in a coal mine (black lung disease)
• Spending 3 hours in a coal mine (accident)
• Living 2 days in New York or Boston in 1979 (air pollution)
• Living 2 months with a smoker (cancer, heart disease)
• Drinking Miami water for 1 year (cancer from chloroform)
• Eating 100 charcoal-broiled steaks (cancer from benzopyrene)
• Traveling 6000 miles (10,000 km) by jet (cancer due to increased background radiation){{cite web|url=http://www.myesr.org/html/img/pool/15_Loose_Reinhard_Radiation_Dose_Issues_and_Risk.pdf|title=Radiation dose issues and risk|publisher=European Society of Radiology|access-date=2013-11-18|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140219020315/http://www.myesr.org/html/img/pool/15_Loose_Reinhard_Radiation_Dose_Issues_and_Risk.pdf|archive-date=19 February 2014}}

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

{{div col|colwidth=20em|small=yes}}

• {{Annotated link |Decision analysis}}
• {{Annotated link |Decision theory}}
• {{Annotated link |Ellsberg paradox}}
• {{Annotated link |List of unusual units of measurement}}
• {{Annotated link |Microlife}}
• {{Annotated link |Pascal's Wager}}
• {{Annotated link |Precautionary principle}}
• {{Annotated link |Risk of ruin}}

{{div col end}}

{{notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{cite journal

| author=Ronald A. Howard

| title=On Fates Comparable to Death

| journal=Management Science

| volume=30

| year=1984

| pages=407–422

| doi=10.1287/mnsc.30.4.407

| issue=4

}}

• {{cite web

|author1=Center for the Study

|author2=Improvement of Regulation

|name-list-style=amp

|title=What is a MicroMort?

|url=http://micromorts.org/tutorial2.aspx

|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130415123624/http://micromorts.org/tutorial2.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

|archive-date=15 April 2013

|url-status=dead

}}{{Unreliable source?|date=February 2024}}

• [https://micromorts.rip/ Micromorts - We are all going to die]

Category:Medical aspects of death

Category:Health risk

Category:Units of measurement

Category:Probability assessment