US Census 2004 Death data – from page 4, take 900 per 100000 – for the overall population; adjusting it to match the age distribution of deployed soldiers is an exercise for the reader.
OK, math time: 830/130000 = 0.6% – the actual death rate for US soldiers in Iraq; 900/100000 = 0.9% – the actual death rate for US residents in the US. Unless my eyes, my sources, or my miniscule powers of interpretation are deceiving me, 0.6 < 0.9, and thus the death rate for the civilians is 50% greater. Somebody, sign me up!
Trackback link:
Please enable javascript to generate a trackback url
But clearly you can’t ignore the age and general health of the soldiers in Iraq. If you look ahead to page 21 of the census report, you can see the death rates broken down by age. The death rate for men aged 20 to 24 is 138 per 100,000, for men aged 25 to 29 it’s 135.6, and for men aged 30 to 34 it’s 143.2. That would cover most of the people serving in Iraq. There are also women serving in Iraq; their U.S. death rates are much lower than men at the same age. Normalizing the 830 to be per 100,000 gives a death rate in Iraq of 638. So the death rate in Iraq is at least four times greater. And that is without normalizing for health—I think we can assume that soldiers are healthier than the general population. And it ignores non-fatal casualties—the death rate in Iraq is quite a bit lower than previous wars because many more people are surviving with serious injuries such as major amputations. Ian Lance Taylor (Email) (URL) - 2007-12-28 20:41
Thanks for the age-normalization data, indeed it makes a big difference. Comparing the two populations in greater depth might be a good project for sociologists. They could make time to analyze behavioral factors that tilt results in the other direction too: maturity, unnecessary-risk-aversion. Frank - 2007-12-28 21:24