Quote:
Originally Posted by Taf
I can't see if you're for or against my statement that smoking causes cancer in a tiny proportion of the population in the UK.
Passive smoking "causes" 600,000 worldwide deaths by cancer out of a world population of 600,000,000... therefore 0.1%.
3,000 deaths as a result of car accidents in the UK... how many die as a result of car accidents worldwide out of the 600,000,000?
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Your calculations for the rates of both tobacco and road deaths are flawed. To average across the population of the entire world you need to be confident that the exposure to the risk is reasonably uniform.
The risk will be higher where the exposure is higher; therefore I would generally expect a higher rate of smoking-related deaths in less developed countries that tend to have higher smoking rates, and a higher rate of road deaths in more developed countries where more of the population are exposed to cars.
Naturally, in both cases, the risk will be mitigated by whatever safety legislation is in force. In the UK, for example, the use of seat belts in cars and the careful control of who can smoke, and where, might reasonably be expected to make a difference.