Nurses, flatmates and cats

More or Less: Behind the Stats

BBC

Business, Mathematics, Science, News Commentary, News

4.6 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2019

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Nurse suicide rates There were some worrying figures in the news this week about the number of nurses in England and Wales who died by suicide over the last seven years. We try to work out what the numbers are really telling us. Are 27 million birds killed a year by cats? Newspapers reported this week that 27 million birds are killed by cats each year. We find out how this number - which might not really be "news" - was calculated. How rare are house shares? A listener got in touch to say she was surprised to read that only 3% of people aged 18 to 34 live in a house share with other people. She feels it must be too low – but is she living in a London house-sharing bubble? We find out. Proving that x% of y = y% of x Why is it that 4% of 75 is the same as 75% of 4? Professor Jennifer Rogers from the University of Oxford joins Tim in the studio to explore a mind-blowing maths ‘trick’. Presenter: Tim Harford Producers: Charlotte McDonald, Darin Graham and Beth Sagar-Fenton

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to more or less, your weekly guide to the numbers all around us in the news and in life.
0:06.4	This week, a London listener wants to know if she's living in a bubble.
0:10.8	Cats reportedly kill 27 million birds a year, loyal listeners wonder how we know.
0:17.5	Is Norwich really closer to Amsterdam than to London?
0:21.0	And the mathematical trick that's wowing Twitter?
0:24.9	But first, earlier this week, the Daily Mirror reported a worrying figure
0:29.5	about the number of nurses who have died by suicide.
0:32.8	More than 300 overworked NHS nurses have died by suicide in just seven years.
0:39.6	Many other newspapers picked up on the story, which made two key claims.
0:44.9	First, it linked these suicides to what the Mirror calls Tory cuts.
0:50.1	It is worth pointing out that the NHS budget hasn't been cut,
0:53.8	although it hasn't increased as fast as in previous decades.
0:57.6	And two, the Mirror said that the suicide rate among nurses is 23% higher than the national average.
1:05.3	And some more or less listeners wrote in wondering how the suicide rate of nurses
1:10.6	compares to other occupations, and if the data show us any trends.
1:14.9	The article implied that this is due to the cuts.
1:18.4	I wanted to know, is this accurate?
1:21.0	How does this compare to similar occupations?
1:24.0	I wondered if this is true.
1:26.0	It's such a sad thing and it should be investigated.
1:29.5	The data come from a report published by the Office for National Statistics,
1:34.1	in total in England and Wales between 2011 and 2017.
	...

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