Comedian Bill Burr's latest special is call "Drop Dead Years." He explains the concept on Jimmy Fallon's show.
While the punchline creates a unique perspective on this chapter of life, the question remains, how did he come to his conclusions? Understanding mortality patterns, and causes of death trends, is of interest to several types of groups: demographers, epidemiologists, researchers, governments, health officials, and especially actuaries. In this article, we will explore if a comedian is actually an actuary in disguise.
There are two claims we need to unpack.
- The "drop dead: years are ages 49-62.
- Dropping dead is "uniquely male"
When are the Drop Dead Years?
To understand this better, we need to define what dropping dead means. Burr refers to "falling off of golf carts" and "face planting into waffles."
This seems to imply heart failure and possibly stroke/brain aneurysms.
- Other disease based causes of death like cancers (neoplasms) have an element of a progression towards mortality.
- Accidents are out because these have an external causes: being crushed by thousands of pounds of cheese, driving a Segway off a cliff, and turtles dropping out of the sky for example.
- Homicides and suicides are out for the same reason as accidents.
- Drug/Alcohol overdoses may be a candidate, but we will hold them off to the side for now.
Using data from the Society of Actuaries' Causes of Death Tool, we find that Burr's claim has some credence. Heart and brain-based causes of death as a percentage of all causes grow quickly from 30-50, and continue to increase throughout life..
Capping this at age 62 isn't fully accurate. A better claim would be to say that the drop-dead years start in the 40's, and omit an upper bound.
It also seems that based on the definition, 'dropping dead' never exceeds 50% of the total causes. In other words, 'dropping dead' doesn't outpace cancers and other causes combined. The thing is, these kinds of deaths are more shocking, so they may stick out in our brains more.
Defining "dropping-dead" differently can paint a new picture. Overdoses and accidents can feel 'sudden' as well and are relatively instantaneous. (Arguably, addiction is observable ahead of overdose, but not always). Mixing the components differently shows that 'dropping dead' can exceed 50% of the causes of death, however, this becomes a different narrative in that accidents and overdoses show up more at younger age levels.
Additionally, while the graphs above are illustrative of the MIX of deaths, it is also important to observe the actual rate of death by age band as well. Generally, it is not until the 40's and 50's that overall mortality rates begin to notably increase, that is deaths start becoming more visible.
Finally, a couple of other observations. It may make sense to separate deaths from non-fatal heart events.
Per the American Heart Association, the average age of "first heart attack" for guys is 65 (which is a little older than Burr's range.
Also, not all heart events are fatal. So Burr might see a person do a nose dive into their brunch, but this may not result in death.
CONCLUSIONS: Depending on the definition, the drop dead years may be a wider age band than Burr claims, and there may not be an upper bound. His claims may be more of a perception of an increasing mortality rate in general as we age.
Is Dropping Dead Uniquely Male?
Unfortunately, here I think Burr is falling victim to a form of information bias. Heart issues are a problem for women as well, but they may be reported on less. Or likey, since Burr is a guy he probably associates more with males, and will hear more stories about males dropping dead than females.
Now, women do tend to have a bit of a mortality advantage over men, so the age range for these drop-dead events becoming more prevalent may be shifted back a little bit. It is not inaccurate to point out some differences in the experience by gender.
A better phrase could be that dropping dead is 'disproportionally male.' However, this may lack comedic punch.
Looking at the ratio of the death rates of males to females for heart and brain events, males are consistently higher, and in the given age range, we find the peak at almost 2.5 times females.
CONCLUSIONS: Cardiac events are killers for both men AND women. Women do have a later onset of these "drop-dead" events, and the "drop-dead" mortality rates are worse for men at each age abnd.
BONUS CONTENT
For a few more thoughts on the intersection between actuaries and comedy - check out the other blog posts on Jokes and Actuaries:
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