Month: May 2022

Current Causes of Death in Children and Adolescents in the United States

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761

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In addition, drug overdose and poisoning increased by 83.6% from 2019 to 2020 among children and adolescents, becoming the third leading cause of death in that age group. This change is largely explained by the 110.6% increase in unintentional poisonings from 2019 to 2020. The rates for other leading causes of death have remained relatively stable since the previous analysis, which suggests that changes in mortality trends among children and adolescents during the early Covid-19 pandemic were specific to firearm-related injuries and drug poisoning; Covid-19 itself resulted in 0.2 deaths per 100,000 children and adolescents in 2020.1

Although the new data are consistent with other evidence that firearm violence has increased during the Covid-19 pandemic,5 the reasons for the increase are unclear, and it cannot be assumed that firearm-related mortality will later revert to prepandemic levels. Regardless, the increasing firearm-related mortality reflects a longer-term trend and shows that we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death. Generational investments are being made in the prevention of firearm violence, including new funding opportunities from the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, and funding for the prevention of community violence has been proposed in federal infrastructure legislation. This funding momentum must be maintained.

Author(s):

Jason E. Goldstick, Ph.D.
Rebecca M. Cunningham, M.D.
Patrick M. Carter, M.D.
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI

Publication Date: 19 May 2022

Publication Site: New England Journal of Medicine

Firearm Mortality by State

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm

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1 The number of deaths per 100,000 total population.

Source: https://wonder.cdc.gov

States are categorized from highest rate to lowest rate. Although adjusted for differences in age-distribution and population size, rankings by state do not take into account other state specific population characteristics that may affect the level of mortality. When the number of deaths is small, rankings by state may be unreliable due to instability in death rates.

Publication Date: accessed 31 May 2022

Publication Site: CDC

Price of Crude Jumps as EU Foolishly Doubles Down On Sanctions

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://mishtalk.com/economics/price-of-crude-jumps-as-eu-foolishly-doubles-down-on-sanctions

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“This is surely unworkable – a carve out for Hungary, which allows its refineries to enjoy sky rocketing margins on sales elsewhere in the EU because of their access to Russian crude. It’s almost laughable,” said Jeremy Warner.

It seems the carve out for Hungary was “workable” after all, with predictable results.

Russia, China, Hungary, and energy producers are the beneficiaries of these terribly counterproductive sanctions.

This is my “Hoot of the Day” but it’s early. I may easily need bonus hoots. 

Author(s): Mike Shedlock

Publication Date: 31 May 2022

Publication Site: Mish Talk

ACTUARY VERSUS DATA SCIENCE

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.oliverwyman.com/our-expertise/insights/2022/may/actuary-versus-data-science.html

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The number of candidates sitting for entry level exam P and exam FM decreased over the last decade. Figure 1 below shows the total attempts for Exams P and FM halving over the past decade.

This represents an average decline of 7% per year across the two exams. This shows a major change from 2013 when the Actuarial Profession was consistently ranked #1 in national job lists and the number of candidates sitting for exams was growing year over year. For reference, Actuary is currently ranked #20, behind software developer (#5) and data scientist (#6).

One hypothesis is that data scientists and similar job openings are drawing potential actuaries away from the profession. To investigate this question, we queried fifteen colleges, actuarial clubs, and their recent graduates to see if this trend was noticeable, with key learnings summarized below:

Candidates at schools with Society of Actuaries (SOA)’s Centers of Actuarial Excellence (CAE) recognition are more than twice as likely to remain on the actuarial career path. Further, the strongest programs appear to attract other majors due to the top-tier program and resources

Recently established data science majors are pulling some students away from actuarial science and quite a few interviewees perceived that the popularity of the actuarial science program is declining

For international students, there is a general perception that it is harder to get an actuarial job that provides working visa sponsorship, while most data science jobs still provide sponsorship

The mixed results between the first two findings suggest that the strongest college actuarial programs are becoming stronger while schools with fledgling or small programs may be struggling. For example, actuarial career fairs tend to be successful only after achieving a level of scale so that they are well attended by both prospective hires and recruiters.

Author(s): Eve Sun, Mark Spong, Roger Yuan

Publication Date: May 2022

Publication Site: Oliver Wyman

Drug-Overdose Deaths Reached a Record in 2021, Fueled by Fentanyl

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/drug-overdose-deaths-reached-a-record-in-2021-fueled-by-fentanyl-11652277600

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Drug-overdose deaths in 2021 topped 100,000 for the first time in a calendar year, federal data showed, a record high fueled by the spread of illicit forms of fentanyl throughout the country.

More than 107,000 people in the U.S. died from drug overdoses last year, preliminary Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released Wednesday showed, roughly a 15% increase from 2020. The proliferation of the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl has been compounded by the destabilizing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on users and people in recovery, according to health authorities and treatment providers.

The U.S. has recorded more than one million overdose deaths since 2000, and more than half of those came in the past seven years.

….

The agency has counted about 103,600 overdoses for 2021 but believes the number is several thousand higher due to suspected overdoses that haven’t yet been confirmed by local death investigators, Dr. Anderson said.

Author(s): Jon Kamp

Publication Date: 11 May 2022

Publication Site: WSJ

Why Elon Musk thinks civilization could crumble without more babies

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.deseret.com/2022/5/26/23142871/elon-musk-population-falling-birthrates-japan-south-korea-us-fertility-italy

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Elon Musk thinks human civilization will fall apart unless people have more babies — and he’s expressed particular worries about Italy, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan. But he has some concerns about the United States, too.

For weeks, Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, the acquirer of Twitter in a $44 billion deal and a father himself, has been tweeting about birthrate declines in America and abroad.

“At risk of stating the obvious, unless something changes to cause the birth rate to exceed the death rate, Japan will eventually cease to exist,” Musk tweeted on May 7, according to TheStreet. “This would be a great loss to the world.”

Author(s): Lois M. Collins

Publication Date: 26 May 2022

Publication Site: Deseret News

Fact-check: Do ‘more people die from hands, fists, feet, than rifles’?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-more-people-die-120052963.html

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“More people die from hands, fists, feet, than rifles. Guess we should ban limbs now…,” reads the May 25 post. Underneath, a graphic titled “Number of murder victims in the Unites States in 2020 by weapon used” shows rifle deaths at 455 and deaths from “personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.)” as 662. The post includes a link to a website called Statista.

….

FBI data from 2020 does show that more people died from injuries sustained from other people’s fists, feet and hands than from rifles. But there’s a little more you should know about that data before you use it to draw conclusions.

Author(s): Jeff Cercone of Austin American-Statesman

Publication Date: 30 May 2022

Publication Site: Yahoo News

A Resilient Future

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://theactuarymagazine.org/a-resilient-future/

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If we consider how risk events unfold in reality, they usually occur through a sequence of interacting factors (see Figure 1). For example: A control does not quite work as intended because the usual supervisor is not available, and coincidentally a staff member has unintended access to a system from which they are able to extract personal information. On any other day, those conditions might have been different and resulted in another outcome. The reality, therefore, is that risks emerge as a result of a complex series of interactions among a large number of factors, and small changes in conditions can lead to significantly different risk outcomes.

Risk events also often involve active participants who learn and adapt their behaviors accordingly. Cyber is a good example—the attacker generally is trying to outthink their adversary and stay one step ahead. All of this means that past performance is not necessarily a reliable predictor of the future. There are too many things that can be subtly different, leading to hugely different outcomes.

Author(s): Neil Cantle

Publication Date: May 2022

Publication Site: SOA

Census: Illinois cities combined lose 104,000 people in 2021

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thecentersquare.com/illinois/census-illinois-cities-combined-lose-104-000-people-in-2021/article_5a261c26-dc63-11ec-8881-f30cf9c72ea4.html?utm_source=Master+List&utm_campaign=e66598c836-MICHIGAN_B2C_NEWSLETTER&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d03ba9ddf1-e66598c836-74692253

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Cities and towns in Illinois lost more than 104,000 people in the 12 months up to July 1, 2021, according to new U.S. Census data released Thursday. Nearly half of Illinois’ losses were from Chicago.

The report for the entire country shows populations continue to shift to towns in the South and West regions of the United States.

“Arizona, Texas, Florida and Idaho all had several places among the 15 fastest-growing cities or towns,” the report said.

Of the 15 largest cities, New York lost nearly 305,500 people. Chicago lost 45,175 people, which was larger than Los Angeles’ loss of 40,537 people. Chicago is the third most populous city behind New York and L.A..

Author(s): Greg Bishop

Publication Date: 26 May 2022

Publication Site: The Center Square

In a Rare White House Meeting, Biden Meets Powell to Discuss Inflation

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://mishtalk.com/economics/in-a-rare-white-house-meeting-biden-meets-powell-to-discuss-inflation-guilty-meets-guilty

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PCE stands for Personal Consumption Expenditures. Those numbers come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)

CPI stands for Consumer Price Index. Those numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)

The key difference is the PCE includes prices paid on behalf of consumers (e.g. Medicare and Medicaid), whereas the CPI only contains prices directly paid by consumers.

The PCE tends to overweight medical expenses while the CPI tends to overweight rent.

The Fed’s preferred measure of inflation is PCE.

CPI and PCE Both Seriously Flawed

Neither measure directly incorporates home prices. Economists explain this away by stating homes are a capital expense. 

OK, so what? The fact is, rising home prices (asset prices in general), are a direct reflection of inflation.

By ignoring asset prices, the Fed helped blow the biggest economic bubble yet. Now the Fed struggles to contain the serious inflation it helped create.


Author(s): Mike Shedlock

Publication Date: 30 May 2022

Publication Site: Mish Talk

How is Population Shifting in Cities or Towns in Your State?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/population-shifting-in-cities-or-towns-2021.html

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Additional links:

Related Information
Population and Housing Unit Estimates

Produces estimates of the population for the United States, its states, counties, cities, and towns, as well as for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

Population

Our population statistics cover age, sex, race, Hispanic origin, migration, ancestry, language use, veterans, as well as population estimates and projections.

Publication Date: 26 May 2022

Publication Site: U.S. Census

A NHTSA official spent years trying to cut road deaths. They jumped last year.

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2022/05/21/road-deaths-fatalities-safety/

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Before Jeffrey Michael spent three decades in the federal government trying toreduce the nation’s road fatalities, he worked in college as a car mechanic.

He took that love of cars to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, where he worked on seat belts, child restraints, drunken driving and emergency medical services, eventually overseeing behavioral research at the agency. At home in the Washington suburbs, he would tinker with the 1987 Porsche 911 he bought as a fixer-upper. After retiring in 2018, he joined the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy.

Michael saw the abilityof federal programs to influence safety and cites a gradual reduction in road deaths over 50 years. But in an interview with The Washington Post — daysafter new NHTSA figures showed fatalities hitting a 16-year high — Michael pointed to the nation’s failure and potential fixes.

Author(s): Michael Laris

Publication Date: 21 May 2022

Publication Site: Washington Post