What is the average survival rate of pop stars?

Photo: flickr/eschipulIt's not surprising that pop and rock stars have higher mortality rates than your average Joe. But how much higher is it, and does it ever decrease again (say, if they make it through the early days of fame unscathed)? According to this study, which determined the relative mortality rates of North American and European musicians (rock, punk, rap, R&B, electronica and new age), music stars experience about 1.7 times higher mortality rates than people in the general population. Interestingly, this risk goes down after about 25 years of fame in European stars, but not the North American ones. The effect is also greatest for stars who became famous before 1980. As for the reference to Eminem in the article's title -- he's not dead (as far as we know), he was just the most recently famous person in their dataset.Elvis to Eminem: quantifying the price of fame through ...