Website shows ‘how you will die’

A data visualization website is taking a unique look at what could likely kill us based on race, sex and age.

Using the Underlying Cause of Death database maintained by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which provides data for the number of people who died in the United States between 1999 and 2014, FlowingData.com created a stimulator showing the 20 major categories of disease and external causes.

After entering sex, race, and age, you can see the dots on the simulator change. “Each dot represents one of your simulated lives, and as each year passes, more of your simulated selves pass away. Color corresponds to cause of death, and the bars on the right keep track of the cumulative percentages. By the end, you’re left with the chances that you will die of each cause,” according to the site.

Though the creator found obvious patterns like external causes are more likely to kill you at a younger age than disease, there were some surprises.

“Shift past 80 years, and it’s over 40 percent chance the cause will be circulatory, regardless of demographic group.

This surprised me, because it seems like cancer would be the leading cause just going off general news. This is certainly true up to a certain age, but get past that and your heart can only keep going for so long.”