| Being male |
2800 |
| Heart disease |
2100 |
| Being unmarried |
2000 |
| Being black (as compared to white) |
2000 |
| Smoking cigarettes (1 pack/day) |
1600 |
| Coal Mining |
1100 |
| Cancer |
980 |
| 30 lb overweight |
900 |
| Grade school dropout |
800 |
| Being poor |
700 |
Stroke
|
520 |
15 lb overweight
|
450 |
All accidents
|
435 |
Vietnam army duty
|
400 |
Living in southeastern U.S.
|
350 |
Construction worker (accidents)
|
320 |
Driving a car (risk of accidents)
|
200 |
Pneumonia and influenza
|
130 |
Alcohol
|
130 |
Suicide
|
95 |
Homicide
|
90 |
Occupational Accidents
|
74 |
Small cars (vs standard size)
|
50 |
Drowning
|
40 |
Raising speed limit, 55 to 65 mph
|
40 |
Falls
|
39 |
Poison + suffocation + asphyxiation
|
37 |
Fire, burns
|
27 |
Radiation worker entire adult life
|
12 |
Firearms
|
11 |
Diet drinks, one per day for life
|
2 |
All electric power nuclear (UCS)
|
1.5 |
Hurricanes and tornadoes
|
1 |
Airline crashes
|
1 |
Hydroelectric power (dam failures)
|
0.5 |
Lifetime at nuclear power plant
|
0.4 |
| All electric power nuclear (NRC) |
0.03 |
The table should be interpreted to mean that the
activity listed lowers, on average, the U.S. life expectancy by
the stated number of days or that engaging in the listed activity
lowers your life expectancy by the given number of days. For example,
the presence of suicide in the U.S. lowers the average life expectancy
by 95 days. Being a grade school dropout, on average, lowers a
person's life expectancy by 800 days.
Note that both the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the
anti-nuclear organization Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) both
estimate the risk from nuclear power to be much lower than many
other activities in our lives. Compare the risk estimates for nuclear
power to that given for hydroelectric power!
