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Can the famous really postpone death?

H Royer1, G Smith

  • 1Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, California 94105, USA.

Social Biology
|March 23, 1999
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Famous individuals may not postpone death until after birthdays. Reanalyzing data reveals increased deaths before and after birth months, possibly due to anxiety or selective data use.

Area of Science:

  • Sociology
  • Mortality Studies
  • Psychological Science

Background:

  • Previous research by David P. Phillips suggested famous individuals postpone death until after birthdays.
  • Phillips' analysis aggregated deaths within the birth month, not differentiating pre- and post-birthday occurrences.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To reexamine Phillips' data on mortality patterns around birthdays.
  • To investigate potential biases in the original analysis and explore alternative explanations for observed trends.

Main Methods:

  • Reanalysis of existing mortality data previously studied by Phillips.
  • Detailed examination of death occurrences relative to the birthday, distinguishing between pre- and post-birthday periods.

Main Results:

Keywords:
CritiqueData AnalysisDemographic FactorsEvaluationMortalityPopulationPopulation DynamicsResearch MethodologyTime FactorsWorld

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  • The reanalysis indicated a significant number of deaths in the month preceding and the months following the birthday.
  • Contrary to the initial hypothesis, a clear postponement of death until after the birthday was not consistently observed.

Conclusions:

  • The original findings regarding birthday-postponed deaths may be questionable due to analytical methods.
  • Increased mortality around birthdays could be linked to psychological stress or celebratory excesses, or potentially be an artifact of data selection.