Risk Charts

If you're a 55 year-old male who has never smoked, how likely is it you will die from heart disease over the next 10 years? From prostate cancer? Pneumonia? We have created charts to provide patients with information - based on actual records - of their risk of death. We used Census data and records from the National Center for Health Statistics to calculate age- and sex-specific death rates. In addition, we broke out the rates for smokers vs. non-smokers.

Simple Charts (see pdfs)

• Men - Never & Current Smokers
• Women - Never & Current Smokers

Complex Charts (see pdfs)

• Men - Never, Former & Current Smokers
• Women - Never, Former & Current Smokers

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The Risk of Death by Age, Sex, and Smoking Status in the United States: Putting Health Risks in Context. Authored by Steven Woloshin , Lisa M. Schwartz, H . Gilbert Welch

Background:

To make sense of the disease risks they face, people need basic facts about the magnitude of a particular risk and how one risk compares with other risks. Unfortunately, this fundamental information is not readily available to patients or physicians. We created simple one-page charts that present the 10-year chance of dying from various causes according to age, sex, and smoking status.

Methods:

We used the National Center for Health Statistics Multiple Cause of Death Public Use File for 2004 and data from the 2004 US Census to calculate age- and sex-specific death rates for various causes of death. We then combined data on smoking prevalence (from the National Health Interview Survey) and the relative risks of death from various causes for smokers vs never smokers (from the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Prevention Study-II) to determine age-, sex-, and smoking-specific death rates. Finally, we accumulated these risks for various starting ages in a series of 10-year life tables. The charts present the 10-year risks of dying from heart disease; stroke; lung, colon, breast, cervical, ovarian, and prostate cancer; pneumonia; influenza; AIDS; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; accidents; and all causes.

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