I know so many of us have worried and fretted about statistics relating to occurrence, recurrence and secondaries, so to help you get a better picture of what statistics actually mean, (or don’t mean!), take a look at the following article on home insurance and the luckiest and unluckiest house numbers and road names for insurance claims. And I’m not related in the slightest to confused.com, I just found the article very enlightening from a BC perspective.
http://www.confused.com/home-insurance/articles/home-insurance-unluckiest-house-number-in-britain-revealed?MediaCode=806&utm\_medium=email&utm\_campaign=Newsletter&utm\_source=Newsletter02Jul
I’m not trying to make any specific point here (it’s far too late in the evening for coherence!) but I think this article really helped me to see the BC statistics for what they are, and more importantly to identify what the statistics mean FOR ME. If you just look at your house number and street name to see how likely you are to make a house insurance claim and then look at how you view the BC statistics - big difference, eh?
So maybe we all need to do what we can to reduce our risks, but we need to keep these statistics in the right perspective and not knock ourselves sideways trying to manipulate statistics, when if we’re going to get it (or get it again), we’re going to get it, whether we live at 166 Green Way or not!
(I have to say, I was surprised that 166 ‘won’, as there are a lot more houses with the number 10 than with the number 166!)
If you look again at the article you will see that it is not the absolute number of houses they are looking at but the percentage. So 21.9% of customers _ living at no 166 _ have made a claim in the past five years. There could be very few customers with an address of 166. Say there are 100 customers who live at 166, 22% would be 22 customers. Say there are 5000 customers with an address at no 10, and say 500 of them have a claim - that is a rate of only 10%, so would feature much lower in the percentage ratings even tho’ numerically there are a lot more of them. Statistics can be pretty meaningless if you don’t know the numbers underlying them.
I heartily agree about the meaninglessness (of that word???) of statistics taken out of context. Here’s another example:
I work in a small primary school. All Key Stage 2 (10-11 year olds) SATs results are reduced to statisitics and we HAVE to get a certain percentage of pupils to achieve a particular level in each subject. When you only have 10 children in that year group EACH child counts for 10%. Thus, only one child needs to underachieve - for whatever reason (not very well, slow learner, nervous… etc etc) - to reduce our percentage to 90. Our teaching is deemed to be inadequate, as we have not met our ‘targets’!! It’s a very different story if you have 90+ children taking the tests, as some schools do, when each child is nearer to 1%.
There’s a reason for the saying “Lies, Da*n lies and Statistics”! BUT they are useful as a guide, if used carefully, with an open mind.
After all NOBODY would buy a lottery ticket if they understood the probability of buying a winning ticket!!
We just need to try to stay healthy and enjoy life as best we can, as none of us know what’s around the corner! 
I have to agree with you JCJ about trying to stay healthy and enjoy life.
But I think we have to be mindful that approx 45,000 of people In the UK are diagnosed with this terrible disease and approx 12000 die each year.
Whilst not getting too bogged down with these facts, it is extremely important to be extra vigilant with any symptoms we may have to reduce these statistics.
Enjoy life, another Pina Colada please barman?!!
It’s up to 48,000 a year now. Scary!