e Dartmouth team used the Multiple Cause of Death File from the National Center for Health Statistics and population estimates from the US Census to calculate death rates for heart disease, stroke, lung, colon, breast and prostate cancer, AIDS, pneumonia, influenza, and accidents, as well as death rates from all causes. They then calculated the 10-year chance of dying for each cause for men and women in 5-year age intervals from age 20 to age 90 and estimated these chances for current smokers and for never smokers.

The researchers caution that the charts only present data about mortality, not disease incidence. Judgments about incidence are far more ambiguous than those about death. Also, risk estimates are not completely individualized. Patients with important disease risk factors, such as a family history of a disease, might obtain more precise estimates of risk from that disease with a customized assessment. The team did, however, account for what are arguably the most important risk factors for death: age, sex and smoking.

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Contact: DMS Communications Office
steve.snyder@dartmouth.edu
603-650-1492
Dartmouth Medical School
4-Jun-2002

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