CAP fatalities vs federal LE

[Ned]

The cause is irrelevant if your purpose is to compare the level of risk involved in different activities or jobs (for example CAP vs firefighters).

Sir,

I'm no math major, but this seems specious.  

If the cause of death is logically unrelated to the profession (e.g. having a heart attack while sitting at your desk at a police station or search base), then it is meaningless to compare "risks" based on professions.

How is that any different that concluding that it is more dangerous to live in a hospital than an apartment building since so many more people die in the hospital?

[RiverAux]

I'm no math major, but this seems specious. 

The math holds up whether you're OSHA and are comparing risks of death between commercial fishermen and roofers or comparing CAP to law enforcement.

You do it by standardizing your method of risk measurement.  I've tried to avoid walking through the math, but here we go:
Group A has 100 members and history shows that 2 members will die every year.
Group B has 1000 members and history shows that 10  members will die every year. 

So you want to see which group has the highest risk of dying every year, but you have to account for the different "population size" of each group (B is 10x bigger than A). 

There are several ways to do this.  One way is to calculate the chance that a member would die in a given year. 
Group A: 2 deaths out of 100 members = 2% chance of a member dying in a year. 
Group B: 10 deaths out of 1000 members = 1% chance of a member dying. 

In the occupational health industry they don't do it that way because the chances of dying are incredibly small in almost any industry you can imagine.  For example a rate of 5 deaths per 100K (which is the average for all occupations) only represents a 0.00005 chance of dying that year and it is too unwieldy to work with all those 0s.

So what they do is what I did and transform the "Population sizes" so that they are equal while at the same time giving you some numbers that are easier to understand.  In this case I chose deaths per 100,000 individuals (the normal standard). 

Using the numbers from the example above. 
Group A.  A rate of 2 per 100 is the exact same thing as 2000 per 100,000 (the math is 2/100 = x/100,000 and solve for x)
Group B.  A rate of 10 per 1,000 is the exact same thing as 1,000 per 100,000 (the math is 10/1,000=x/100,000 and solve for x). 

Now, after transformation we see that Group A has a mortality rate of 2000 per 100,000 while Group B is 1,000 per 100,000. 

So, despite their different population sizes and different in actual number of deaths it is very simple to compare the two and we find that it is actually riskier to be a member of the small group even though the larger group had a larger number of actual deaths. 

Hopefully that explains it for everyone.  Refer future complaints to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Here is a public article based on recent stats that does just what I did:  http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/20/news/fewer_workers_die_on_job/?postversion=2008082015

[lordmonar]

The cause is irrelevant if your purpose is to compare the level of risk involved in different activities or jobs (for example CAP vs firefighters).  If your purpose is to figure out how to reduce risks, then it is important to compare comparable groups (CAP small fixed-wing planes vs other users of small fixed-wing planes).  In those situations it is critical to find groups as similar as possible so that if one group has a higher accident rate you can figure out what they're doing differently from the group with the lower rate since they're obviously not doing things as safetly as possible.  However, this is not what I was wanting to do with this thread.   

Well then....there you go....by looking at Fallen Officer site...they had 4 aviation related deaths this year.  Compared to our zero.  CAP is safer then being a Flying Cop.

[Ned]

So you want to see which group has the highest risk of dying every year, but you have to account for the different "population size" of each group (B is 10x bigger than A). 

See, that's the problem.

Simply knowing how many people in a given job die each year has nothing to do with knowing the "risk" of the profession..

Because the whole point of deciding which professions are riskier only makes sense if the risk is somehow related to the profession itself.  If the risk of mortality is based on something other than the profession, that the statistic is misleading and worse than useless.

If it turns out that Supreme Court justices die in the courhouse more often than astronauts die while hanging around  NASA only because justices are far older on average than astronauts and tend to die of age-related reasons, then it would be silly to conclude that being a justice is "riskier" than being an astronaut.

Especially when making pension or insurance decisions.

[wingnut55]

So if the Stats are close?

I wonder how CAP HQ Corporate can sleep at night knowing they give only $10,000 death benefit to members killed while working on a Corporate Mission.

[JayT]

So if the Stats are close?

I wonder how CAP HQ Corporate can sleep at night knowing they give only $10,000 death benefit to members killed while working on a Corporate Mission.

How can you sleep at night knowing you can change it, and don't?

[Flying Pig]

Most on duty law enforcement officers at the top end only get about $50,000 for a death benefit however, my kids and wife can then go to college for free for 4 years in CA.
Although it may sound like a lot to some....50k will go quick.  Death benefits are never a worth while amount.  Get Life Insurance.
Im still not sure what some of you are looking for?  I think many of you want to be on equal status with the military and  law enforcement with all of this talk about pensions, and death benefits.  But I would be willing to bet the majority of you wouldn't be willing to attend 50% of the training required to be in those professions as a career or deal with a fraction of the crap, the deployments, the law suits and the constant public scrutiny that many of us live in who work in those professions. Those who have been EMS/police or military understand.  Those of you who havnt....

1-800-goguard.

[JayT]

EMS - The Greatest Job On Earth!

[Eclipse]

Most on duty law enforcement officers at the top end only get about $50,000 for a death benefit however, my kids and wife can then go to college for free for 4 years in CA.
Although it may sound like a lot to some....50k will go quick.  Death benefits are never a worth while amount.  Get Life Insurance.
Im still not sure what some of you are looking for?  I think many of you want to be on equal status with the military and  law enforcement with all of this talk about pensions, and death benefits.  But I would be willing to bet the majority of you wouldn't be willing to attend 50% of the training required to be in those professions as a career or deal with a fraction of the crap, the deployments, the law suits and the constant public scrutiny that many of us live in who work in those professions. Those who have been EMS/police or military understand.  Those of you who havnt....

1-800-goguard.

One should not confuse the assertion of one person here as to what the rest of us want or don't want.  The majority of the posters in this thread disagreed with the hypothesis and most of us took exception to the math as well.

I believe the majority of us simply want a little respect and appreciation for the time and effort we put in (with no compensation whatsoever), without the condescension afforded by some who believe one form of service is superior to another (not ascribing that to anyone here, specifically), and 99% of the time we do get that from the other agencies we work with and the people that we help.

Those of us who "get it" understand the limits and lines, would not assert (or even care) about being on on equal footing with other agencies, per se, and those who don't "get it" are in their garage right now adding another row of LEDs to their grill and aren't listening anyway.

[Major Carrales]

Sorry, River, I have to disqualify your "study" as a bit unscientific.  To get the data you want would require hiring a trained statistician who would examine trends, use mathematical formulae and other things related to both subjects (or multiple including CAP and the organizations in question) to reach a conclusion that would be valid.

If you post was merely for conversation's sake, good.  If you have some other "contention," I don't think the statisitics are valid enough to make a fair, true and scienific conclusion.

Just one man's opinion.

[RiverAux]

Sorry, River, I have to disqualify your "study" as a bit unscientific.  To get the data you want would require hiring a trained statistician who would examine trends, use mathematical formulae and other things related to both subjects (or multiple including CAP and the organizations in question) to reach a conclusion that would be valid.

I probably would do some more refinement before submitting this data to a professional journal, but as someone who IS trained in statistics (including this sort) and HAS published many peer-reviewed scientific research articles (and is regularly asked to review other's work), I'm fairly confident that my estimates of the overall mortality rate of CAP senior members is pretty darn close.  I could actually come up with very precise annual mortality rates using the numbers I posted earlier and compare that to the numbers of senior members reported in annual reports, but since no one seems to have any capacity for understanding basic statistics anyway, I'm not going to bother.

I wouldn't try to publish my aircrew-only mortality rate estimate as is since it would be very difficult, if not impossible to come up with an accurate number of participants in the program (as I mentioned earlier).  But, if anything, the numbers I did use very likely underestimate the death rate for that group as I bet the actual participant numbers are less than the 9,000 I utilized. 

[Eclipse]

I probably would do some more refinement before submitting this data to a professional journal, but as someone who IS trained in statistics (including this sort) and HAS published many peer-reviewed scientific research articles (and is regularly asked to review other's work),

Link?

[RiverAux]

Take my word for it as a CAP officer and a veteran of this board, or not.  Your choice, I don't care. 

[Major Carrales]

Take my word for it as a CAP officer and a veteran of this board, or not.  Your choice, I don't care. 

I'll take your word for it, however, be advised that unless one knows who you are...making such statements on such credentials is highly "dubious" (as in having the two natures of enhancing credibility while also slowing its effectiveness behind the shroud of the unknown)  to the causal onlooker.

[N Harmon]

Well, I for one applaud RiverAux's attempt to find what the relative risks of being active in CAP emergency services really is. While I may have taken a different approach, like looking at injuries per hours of operation and comparing that with agencies that are similar to ours, I think this type of work is important none the less. For one, it could provide a useful metric for judging the effectiveness of our safety program.

[wingnut55]

From MAXWELL-GUNTER NEWS

The 57,000 members of the Civil Air Patrol will observe another year of vigilant service to America on Monday.

The all-volunteer, nonprofit organization was founded Dec. 1, 1941, less than a week before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor led to America's involvement in World War II.

Its members soon proved their worth by conducting aerial patrols, vigilance that discouraged and eventually stopped deadly German U-boat attacks on shipping in American waterways.

Fifty-nine heroic members died, 26 were lost at sea and seven others were seriously injured while carrying out CAP missions during the war.
"Our citizen volunteers have a proud legacy of selfless service to their country and their communities. They truly go above and beyond each day, giving their best as needs arise," said Maj. Gen. Amy Courter, CAP's national commander.

[ZigZag911]

The risks of serving as CAP aircrew are, of course, inherently different from the risks faced daily by LE officers. Comparisons, as Flying Pig noted, are 'apples and oranges'.

What both have in common, however, is the element of offering one's service (as a professional LE officer, or a volunteer CAP member) for the benefit of others.

Our concern ought to be for those left behind, spouses, children, other relatives who may well have depended on the fallen member.

I think we can agree that a $10000 death benefit does not go very far today. That ought to be our focus -- whether an adjustment to/ increase of the benefit, or some other means (such as the pension suggested by RiverAux) is open to debate -- but we ought to agree that these are "our own", and start to look to how we can help.

[RiverAux]

like looking at injuries per hours of operation

That is certainly another valid way of doing it.  However, CAP just doesn't collect the data necessary to use that method.