de Leeuw Peter W
Universitair Medisch Centrum Maastricht, afd. Interne Geneeskunde, Maastricht, the Netherlands.
Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd. 2011;155(51):A4419.
Many people are inclined to believe that popular music artists are prone to die prematurely. Scientific research into this matter is scarce. There is only one epidemiological study on this subject, showing that mortality among pop stars during the first 25 years after they became famous is increased. This mortality is higher in Northern America than it is in Europe, but European pop stars die on average at an earlier age. A fairly common belief states that many pop stars die at the age of 27 years. This age has even been proclaimed as the most critical for modern musicians. However, data of several hundred deceased pop stars shows no evidence for increased mortality at the age of 27. Moreover, the data suggests that the age of death has increased over the past forty years. As far as the cause of death is concerned, overdose of drugs or alcohol rank highly next to cardiovascular disease and malignancy.
许多人倾向于认为流行音乐艺术家容易过早离世。对此问题的科学研究很少。关于这个主题只有一项流行病学研究，表明流行歌星在成名后的头25年里死亡率有所上升。北美地区的这种死亡率高于欧洲，但欧洲流行歌星的平均死亡年龄更早。一种相当普遍的看法是，许多流行歌星在27岁时去世。这个年龄甚至被宣称对现代音乐家来说是最关键的。然而，数百名已故流行歌星的数据并未显示出在27岁时有死亡率上升的证据。此外，数据表明在过去四十年里死亡年龄有所增加。就死因而言，药物或酒精过量仅次于心血管疾病和恶性肿瘤，位列高位。
