Death Postponement
Background
Researchers noticed that people die less frequently before there is a major events (birthdays, wedding anniversaries, etc.) than after. Can humans “postpone” their deaths? Researchers looked at 747 deaths in Salt Lake City and found that 60 deaths occurred in the three-month window before a person’s birthday (Newsweek, 3/6/1978).
There are actual studies to explain the existence of death postponement. Here is one them.
To test this hypothesis, we test if there is less death within 3 month’s before people’s birthday (1/4 of a year)
Test
Where p is percentage of people who die in the 3-month window before their birthday.
If the null hypothesis (H0) is false, then we can say that there are less deaths in the 3 month time frame before an individual’s birthday.