survival

We thought it would be interesting to extend our Survival animation backwards in time. With some help by the ONS Centre for Demography we've been able to go back roughly to 1845.

This is still a work in progress, but we thought you might be interested in these different ways the data in Charles Minard's map can be visualised. The Minard map is a beautifully clear summary of the progress of Napoleon's 1812 campaign. It depicts a broad river of men flowing eastwards, suffering continuous depletion from disease, desertion and death, with just a few surviving the disastrous retreat.

How long are going to live? showed how the chances of dying each year depend on how old you are and what your health behaviours have been. Here we show how these annual 'hazards', survival curves and life expectancies can all be obtained from data on what proportion of people of each age die each year in the UK.

None of us are going to last for ever. Our prospects depend on our sex, our age, our lifestyle, our genes, and many other personal factors both known and unknown. Even with all this information we're all uncertain about the exact date of our death, but by looking at large groups of people who are like us, we can count how many die each year and so get an idea of the risks we face and how long we might live. Our risks can be summarised in different ways which are shown in the animation below.