They say knowing that you are dying puts important things in perspective. Want to make the best decisions? Behold: a life expectancy calculator.
Knowing Your Life Expectancy Influences Your Actions
Could knowing the date of your death change your actions? One example of this situation is Tiberius Caesar. When astrologer Thrasyllus declared that Caesar had long years of life ahead, the paranoid emperor then put off the murder of his heir Caligula.
While some people do not want to discover the date when they will be put to rest, some people do want to know how much time they have. It serves as a wake-up call to achieve what they desire the most in their lifetime.
Having people who like to know about their life expectancy in their mindset, the University of East Anglia researchers have created an app named My Longevity, reported International Business Times.
How Does the App Make the Calculation?
The application uses various medical and lifestyle factors to surmise the expected life expectancy of its users. The app's calculations are based on large health databases.
The University of East Anglia's research is part of the IFoA Actuarial Research Centre's (ARC) Big Health and Actuarial Data Research Program. The app uses a large amount of data from anonymized electronic health records in England and Wales to calculate life expectancy. It takes into consideration sociodemographic and health properties including chronic diseases, reported The Actuary.
Relevance
With the number of fatalities and perpetual complications from COVID-19 and with mortality ever-constant in the news, some people may be curious if it is probable to predict their life expectancy, reported Express.
One of the ways to predict such is to use a life expectancy calculator.
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Aspects of Life That Will Be Influenced
Being made aware of how many years we have left could affect many aspects of our life: when to retire, whether to opt for certain medical treatments, and whether to take a long-awaited vacation.
How to Treat the Predictions
How seriously one should decipher the app's predictions is basically a function of how accurately it depicts the sub-population into which you suitably fit.
According to the researchers from the University of East Anglia, "Here we ask you to input some demographic and health information. This information is used in our calculations to find your life expectancy. Any information you enter is not permanently stored."
Why Should One Know Their Life Expectancy?
The researchers indicated that the application helps clarify how individual factors and lifestyles affect life expectancy. It could even prompt people to develop positive changes to ensure longevity including quitting smoking.
Factors That Influence the Results
The main reason life expectancy calculators calculate varying figures is that there are a broad series of factors affecting the results.
Examples include being married which increases your life expectancy compared to being single and having a happy disposition. Levels of fruit and vegetable intake affect longevity.
Life Expectancy and Life Span
Life expectancy is on average the estimation of the duration of members of any given population that are expected to live. Life span is the maximum length of time any member of the species could live.
The life span has been altered very little but the global life expectancy has skyrocketed by over 40 years since the start of the 20th century due to the development of science and public health.
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