New Website Calculates When You’ll Die

By Amanda Pendolino on August 27th, 2009

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What are your chances of dying? According to Fox News, researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon claim to have the answer. They’ve created a new website called DeathRiskRankings.com, which calculates a statistic based on publicly available data from the United States and Europe, comparing mortality risks by gender, age, cause of death and geographic region. Once you input your personal info, it tells you the probable causes of your exit and provides insight on when it might happen. You can also compare yourself to other people.

It’s all pretty effing morbid, but I have to admit I’m kind of curious. Be aware that the site can’t actually guarantee accuracy (duh). It only really provides information about groups of people, and warns that your own death is caused by a number of factors that you may not be aware of: genes, your decision to go skydiving, etc.

The site is less of a crystal ball and more of an explanation into risk factors that play a role in death. “Most Americans don’t have a particularly good understanding of their own mortality risks, let alone ranking of their relevant risks,” said David Gerard, a former professor at Carnegie Mellon who is now an associate professor of economics at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.