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Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

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Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#241

Post by woodruffw »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #77
ganoushoreilly wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Within my brothers circle of friends / former friends etc, amongst those that participate in recreational drug use, there have been a crazy number of Fentanyl related deaths. They're all between the ages of 25 - 30. I can't help but wonder how much this has an impact.

All of the non-COVID deaths I’ve heard of among younger people ( Working from home can remove a lot of the accountability that keeps addicts in check. When your coworkers can’t see you, it’s much easier to be inebriated or otherwise suffering from addiction-related issues without feeling social pressure to correct it.

> Working from home can remove a lot of the accountability that keeps addicts in check.

This is a cruel twist, given that suicide deaths actually decreased in 2020[1], probably for the reason you've mentioned: spending nearly all of your time with others makes you accountable and removes opportunities for self-harm.

[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/VSRR016.pdf

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#243

Post by jimmygrapes »

arcticbull wrote: post #141
nerdbaggy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct! “ The synthetic and highly addictive drug has claimed more lives than COVID-19, auto crashes, gun violence, cancer and suicide in the year 2020.” https://www.abc12.com/news/fentanyl-number-one-cause-of-deat...

> "The synthetic and highly addictive drug" Funny use of the word 'synthetic' to add extra spookiness. Something like 60% of first-world medicines are natural origin or secondary metabolites of natural origin - the other 40% are all synthetic. [1] [1] https://www.spandidos-publications.com/10.3892/br.2017.909

I wondered this myself, since they usually spell out "synthetic opioid" when referring to fentanyl and its ilk, ostensibly to compare it against naturally derived opioids. I have no idea how many in use today are naturally derived; maybe "synthetic" was always a scare term on that context?

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#244

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

sigstoat wrote: post #181
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the other thing that may be possible (just guessing, I'm not a statistician or actuarial) is that by using the term "3 sigma" I'm assuming they're modeling the data as a normal distribution. But these types of outlier events often follow power laws, such that you get "fat tails" when looking at a bell curve.

> that by using the term "3 sigma" I'm assuming they're modeling the data as a normal distribution variance and standard deviation don't only apply to normal distributions. and "sigma" is the symbol normally used for variance regardless of the underlying distribution. > I'm assuming sigh.

Yes, I'm fully aware that variance and standard deviation apply to any sample or population, and that sigma is normally used for standard deviation.

However, in everyday usage, saying something is a "2 or 3 sigma" event nearly always refers to a normal distribution unless otherwise noted, because otherwise that information doesn't really tell you anything. Is only with a specific distribution that can imply a percentage likelihood, e.g. 5% for a 2 sigma event or .3% for a 3 sigma event. Also, if you're looking at at annual probability, 1-in-200 year event would correspond to just about 3 sigma on a normal distribution.

Sigh

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#245

Post by [deleted] »

wjnc wrote: post #208
civilized wrote: post #118

This may well be true in some suitably qualified sense, but it's odd to be hearing it from an insurance company first. General population death records would enable government health agencies to catch such large statistical shifts more quickly than an insurance company. I suspect what they're seeing is real, but they're exaggerating how representative it is of all geographic regions and socioeconomic strata. Maybe th…

Working as an actuary. The only way I can make sense of this headline (GDPR block) is: normally for age X deaths Y. Of those Y there are many with health preconditions that can’t get life coverage. Now a disease hits that kills some and effects everyone (this is somewhat contrary to the usual view of corona). You can have a massive increase in deaths without preconditions even if the absolute rise is small. So their…

[deleted]

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#246

Post by woodruffw »

mlyle wrote: post #227
woodruffw wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for linking the factsheet. These deaths are a useless tragedy, and it frustrates me to see them framed against another useless tragedy. The CDC's death count with age breakdowns[1] shows that over twice as many people aged 18-64 died of COVID-19 than drug overdoes, combined across 2020 and 2021. That flips when you limit it to just 18-45, which is the statistic FAF is using. [1]: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/…

> and it frustrates me to see them framed against another useless tragedy. You know, people need an anchor point for comparison very often. "Holy shit COVID and car crashes are bad, and among younger adults -- believe it or not-- fentanyl is even worse".

I think it's valuable to have a reference point, and I've done that myself in my comments. The frustration comes not from the comparison or reference, but as a framing designed to excuse irresponsible behavior during the ongoing pandemic.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#247

Post by red_trumpet »

wjnc wrote: post #208
civilized wrote: post #118

This may well be true in some suitably qualified sense, but it's odd to be hearing it from an insurance company first. General population death records would enable government health agencies to catch such large statistical shifts more quickly than an insurance company. I suspect what they're seeing is real, but they're exaggerating how representative it is of all geographic regions and socioeconomic strata. Maybe th…

Working as an actuary. The only way I can make sense of this headline (GDPR block) is: normally for age X deaths Y. Of those Y there are many with health preconditions that can’t get life coverage. Now a disease hits that kills some and effects everyone (this is somewhat contrary to the usual view of corona). You can have a massive increase in deaths without preconditions even if the absolute rise is small. So their…

This let's you circumvent the GDPR block: https://web.archive.org/web/20220102164149/https://www.thece...

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#248

Post by civilized »

wjnc wrote: post #208
civilized wrote: post #118

This may well be true in some suitably qualified sense, but it's odd to be hearing it from an insurance company first. General population death records would enable government health agencies to catch such large statistical shifts more quickly than an insurance company. I suspect what they're seeing is real, but they're exaggerating how representative it is of all geographic regions and socioeconomic strata. Maybe th…

Working as an actuary. The only way I can make sense of this headline (GDPR block) is: normally for age X deaths Y. Of those Y there are many with health preconditions that can’t get life coverage. Now a disease hits that kills some and effects everyone (this is somewhat contrary to the usual view of corona). You can have a massive increase in deaths without preconditions even if the absolute rise is small. So their…

They're in group life so selection should be limited. And they said the deaths are mostly not COVID.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#249

Post by ur-whale »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #110
dazc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The burden of complying with EU privacy laws that benefit no one aside from a powerful lobby group of EU-based media businesses.

Huh? Personally, as an EU citizen, I like the laws, and feel like they benefit me.

We're not talking about the laws here but about the dumb pop-up you anyway click OK on systematically and therefore serves exactly no purpose.

Re: Indiana life insurance CEO says deaths are up 40% among people ages 18-64

#250

Post by hllooo »

netizen-936824 wrote: post #51
maxerickson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a literary construction, emphasizing that the 40% increase is not an observation about elderly people. It's not intended to be taken alone as a statement about the elderly.

He is making a statement on his data and saying that elderly aren't dying at the same rate. How is it possible to take that any way besides literally?

No, he's making a statement saying that his data shows working age people dying at a higher rate. It says nothing about elderly people.

The head of Indianapolis-based insurance company OneAmerica said the death rate is up a stunning 40% from pre-pandemic levels among working-age people.

...

Davison said the increase in deaths (that his company sees) represents “huge, huge numbers,” and that’s it’s not elderly people who are dying (to account for this increase), but “primarily working-age people 18 to 64” who are the employees of companies that have group life insurance plans through OneAmerica.

Plus, he actually could say "that elderly people aren't dying at the same rate" in his dataset and be technically correct. The elderly are not part of his dataset, so it's vacuously true.

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