What are the odds of a 78-year-old American dying in the next 4 years

| May 7, 2025

Given that the individual is an American, we can use data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or other health statistics sources to refine the estimate. The mortality rates for people in the U.S. are influenced by factors like obesity, age, and other comorbidities, as well as gender.

Mortality Rate Estimates for a 78-Year-Old American Male

For American men, the average life expectancy at age 78 is approximately 10–12 more years, according to the CDC and National Vital Statistics Reports. However, this is an average estimate, and specific risk factors can either lower or increase this number.

Factors That Could Influence Mortality Risk:

  1. Overweight and Obesity:
    Being overweight increases the likelihood of developing chronic conditions such as:

    • Heart disease
    • Type 2 diabetes
    • High blood pressure
    • Stroke

    These conditions are linked to higher mortality rates. Obesity is associated with a 6–10% increased risk of death compared to people with normal weight, depending on the severity of the obesity and associated diseases.

  2. Mortality Rates for Older Adults in the U.S.:
    The CDC provides mortality rates by age group, which give a general idea of the death risk for a 78-year-old male:

    • For a 78-year-old male, the annual mortality rate is typically around 4–6% depending on health status.
    • Given that the individual is overweight, the annual risk might be at the higher end of this range (closer to 6%).

Estimating the 4-Year Risk:

If we assume an annual mortality rate of around 5-6%, we can calculate the probability of dying over the next 4 years.

Step-by-Step Approximation:

  • Survival Probability:
    For a 5% annual mortality rate:

    P(\text{survival for 1 year}) = 1 - 0.05 = 0.95

    The probability of surviving for 4 years is:

    P(\text{survival for 4 years}) = 0.95^4 \approx 0.8145

    So, the probability of surviving 4 years is 81.45%.

  • Mortality Probability:
    The probability of dying in the next 4 years is:

    P(\text{death in 4 years}) = 1 - 0.8145 = 0.1855

    This means the individual has approximately 18.55% chance of dying in the next 4 years.

Adjusting for Overweight:

Being overweight can slightly increase this risk. If we assume that the risk for someone overweight is at the higher end of the spectrum (6% annually), the calculations would change slightly:

  • New survival probability for 1 year:

    P(\text{survival for 1 year}) = 1 - 0.06 = 0.94

    The survival probability for 4 years would be:

    P(\text{survival for 4 years}) = 0.94^4 \approx 0.7841

    So, the survival probability drops to 78.41%.

  • Adjusted mortality probability:

    P(\text{death in 4 years}) = 1 - 0.7841 = 0.2159

    This gives an approximate 21.59% chance of dying in the next 4 years for an overweight 78-year-old male.

Conclusion:

For a 78-year-old overweight male in the U.S., the estimated risk of dying in the next 4 years is roughly 18.5% to 21.6%, depending on the severity of the overweight status and other health factors.

This estimate is a general approximation and would need to be adjusted for specific health conditions, lifestyle choices, and the presence of chronic diseases.

Narwhals and Octonauts

| December 22, 2016
Photo by Paul Nicklen

I probably never would have know what a Narwhal was if it wasn’t for watching an episode of Octonauts with my young (at the time) daughter. Narwhals are toothed whales with a large “tusk” from a protruding tooth.

The image featured above is a beautiful picture of Narwhals taken by National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen.  The Narwhals are taking a breather in an ice hole near Baffin Island.  The picture won National Geographic’s “Animals in their environment” winner in the 2007 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Contest.

This picture was also featured in the White House’s posting on Medium defending why the Obama Administration is doing everything it can to protect the environment and the Arctic.

Here’s the Octonaut’s episode on the Narwhal, enjoy it with a young person and learn more about this unusual and beautiful animal.

Embedded Youtube Video – How to take a square root

| August 29, 2016

Cool Google Chrome trick: Add Events in Google Calendar From the Omnibox

| April 29, 2015

Here’s a cool trick that appeared on PcMag.com.  I copied the tip here to my blog for easier reference.

358733-add-events-in-google-calendar-from-the-omnibox

Add Events in Google Calendar From the Omnibox

You can use your Omnibox to access Google Calendar’s “quick add” function. First thing to do is copy this line of code:

http://www.google.com/calendar/event?ctext=+%s+&action=TEMPLATE&pprop=HowCreated%3AQUICKADD

Next, go to Settings, scroll down to Search, click on “Manage search engines…” (chrome://settings/searchEngines) and a new window will open. Scroll all the way down until you see three fields labeled “Add a new search engine,” “Keyword,” and “URL with %s in place of quotes” (don’t worry about that crazy talk in that last one).

In the first field, just write “Google Calendar,” in the keyword field write “Calendar” (or whatever omnibox prompt you would like to use when you use this function). In the third field, paste the line of code you copied above. Then click done.

Now type “calendar” (or whatever you chose to put in the keyword field) in the omnibox and hit tab, and you should get a solid tab box that says “search Google Calendar.” Don’t let the “search” part fool you, you will only be adding information.

Use plain sentence-style English to describe a future event with all the whats, wheres, and whens. Google is fairly adept at wringing out the details and translating it into a Calendar event. In the above example, after prompting the calendar search, I typed “eat all the tuna fish in the world next Tuesday at 8:30” and then hit return to automatically open an autopopulated Google Calendar tab with all the correct information. From there, all I had to do was press “SAVE” or “Discard.”

Microsoft Outlook Preview available for Android

| January 29, 2015

Microsoft Outlook is now available for Android as a preview in the Google Play Store. I just installed it on my Samsung Galaxy S3.  Here’s the “Add an Account” screen.  At first glance there doesn’t appear to be any integration of Outlook contacts with contacts in Android.

Hopefully they are working on that.

Microsoft Outlook for Android Preview

Microsoft Outlook for Android Preview

Here’s the link to the app on Google Play.  It’s hard to find just searching on Google Play as there are other similar apps from Microsoft such as Outlook.com and OWA for Android which are different applications!