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Avoiding Premature Death

34 chapters. 765 guides. Search a problem or browse the complete source order.

Browse all 34 chapters in source order
01Avoiding Premature Death48 guides02Preventing Chronic Decline47 guides03Protecting Your Mental Energy27 guides04Stopping Time Wasters18 guides05Cutting Financial Waste50 guides06The Anti-Checklist35 guides07Surviving Broke23 guides08Staying Out of Trouble46 guides09Everyday Legal Traps29 guides10The Economics of Dating and Marriage23 guides11Legal Boundaries for Developers21 guides12Starting and Running a Business28 guides13Handling Emergencies48 guides14Digital Security and Privacy12 guides15Renting and Buying a Home18 guides16Managing Chronic Illness14 guides17Caring for Aging Parents13 guides18The True Cost of Raising Kids7 guides19Workplace Rights and Injuries24 guides20Newborn Survival Guide17 guides21International Travel Safety13 guides22Science-Backed Relaxation12 guides23High-Leverage Skills to Learn25 guides24Navigating Healthcare15 guides25Handling End-of-Life Affairs12 guides26Building a Compliant Platform13 guides27Pregnancy and Childbirth20 guides28Appearance vs. Health10 guides29Recovering from Major Life Blows14 guides30Raising School-Age Kids21 guides31Life Paths After Eighteen17 guides32Studying Abroad Pragmatically12 guides33Navigating Life with Disability21 guides34Safe Home Medication12 guides

48 guides found

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Always wear seat belts, both front and back

Wearing a seat belt in the front seat cuts the risk of dying in a crash by roughly half. For drivers and passengers in light trucks, the reduction is …

Cost
No cost at all. It only adds about 2 seconds to every trip.
Benefit
According to NHTSA estimates, seat belts lower the risk of fatal injury for front‑seat occ…

Wearing a helmet and fastening the strap while riding motorcycles or e-bikes

Wearing a helmet and fastening the strap properly reduces a motorcyclist’s risk of dying in an accident by roughly 40%. The chance of suffering a head…

Cost
A helmet costs between 100 and 300 yuan. It takes just 5 seconds to put on each time.
Benefit
Cochrane pooled data from multiple studies. For motorcyclists wearing helmets, the risk of…

Replace gas hoses and stoves when they reach their expiration date; never modify the piping yourself, and you may decline any unsolicited sales pitches from gas companies.

Replace expired gas hoses and appliances: this is a user obligation in China's Regulations on Urban Gas Management. The regulations prohibit unauthori…

Cost
A compliant gas hose costs only a few dozen yuan. Stoves should be replaced every few year…
Benefit
The regulations designate “promptly replacing gas appliances and connecting hoses that hav…

Electric bicycles must not be pushed into stairwells, elevators, or charged indoors

Pushing an electric bike into a stairwell, elevator, or charging it at home is strictly prohibited under the Ministry of Emergency Management’s regula…

Cost
No direct cost. The tricky part is having to walk a few dozen meters each time to reach th…
Benefit
The regulations explicitly forbid parking or charging electric bikes in public lobbies, ha…

Measuring blood pressure and taking meds to reach target levels

For every 10 mmHg drop in blood pressure, the risk of major cardiovascular problems falls by 20%, stroke risk drops 27%, heart failure risk drops 28%,…

Cost
An electronic sphygmomanometer costs 100–200 RMB. Each measurement takes 1 minute. Most an…
Benefit
Data from 123 clinical trials involving over 610,000 participants shows that a 10 mmHg red…

After age 35, anyone who is overweight should get a fasting blood glucose test; if the result is normal, repeat it every three years.

For just a few dozen yuan, a single blood test can detect prediabetes even when there are absolutely no symptoms at all. Official US screening guideli…

Cost
A fasting blood glucose test costs just a few dozen yuan. Testing for glycated hemoglobin …
Benefit
The US Preventive Services Task Force is the official body that issues screening recommend…

Use a car seat for children under 4, don’t hold them in your arms

For infants under one year old, using a car seat cuts the risk of a fatal injury in a crash by roughly 70%. For children aged 1 to 4, the risk drops b…

Cost
A seat costs between 300 and 2,000 yuan and lasts several years. It adds about one minute …
Benefit
According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), car seats lo…

Install window guards and balcony barriers if you have kids at home; screen windows do not count as protection

These window guards cost only a few dozen yuan each. New York City once offered free window guards to high-risk households and provided on-site guidan…

Cost
A set of window guards or child safety locks costs just a few dozen yuan to install, and t…
Benefit
Since 1972, New York City has run a program called “Kids Can’t Fly,” which distributes fre…

Keep young children in sight near water; wear life jackets when boating or swimming

Wearing a life jacket while in the water cuts the risk of drowning to roughly half compared to not wearing one. Drowning remains the leading cause of …

Cost
Life jackets cost between 50 and 200 yuan. Additionally, parents must dedicate constant at…
Benefit
Research using U.S. Coast Guard data compared similar groups of people. For individuals wh…

Exercising balance and leg strength for people over 60, plus home modifications

Doing balance exercises such as Tai Chi two or three times weekly can cut the overall number of falls among older adults by roughly 23%. It also reduc…

Cost
Aim to practice balance exercises two to three times per week, each session lasting 30 min…
Benefit
Cochrane analyzed 108 separate trials involving 23,407 participants. Collectively, these s…

Get tested for hepatitis B markers; if no antibodies, get vaccinated

The test itself is very inexpensive. In Qidong’s 30‑year follow‑up study, infants who received the hepatitis B vaccine at birth had an 84% lower risk …

Cost
The test costs just a few dozen yuan per person. For adults lacking antibodies, three dose…
Benefit
This Qidong trial used group randomization rather than individual assignment and was track…

If you get pricked by a nail or splinter, or if a wound gets dirty with soil, seek treatment the same day and ask whether a tetanus shot is needed.

Once tetanus sets in, about 1 out of every 10 people dies. The risk is highest for deep wounds or wounds contaminated with dirt. If a wound is dirty a…

Cost
Seeing a doctor and having the wound treated typically costs a few dozen yuan. If a shot i…
Benefit
In the U.S., roughly 1 out of every 10 tetanus cases ends in death. Deep wounds and those …

The earlier women get the HPV vaccine, the better

Data from 1.67 million Swedish women show that those who received the HPV vaccine before age 17 have only about one‑eighth the risk of developing inva…

Cost
Domestic bivalent vaccines cost around 300 RMB per dose, while imported 9‑valent vaccines …
Benefit
Swedish research on 1.67 million women found that vaccinated individuals have a much lower…

Breast cancer screening for women: mammograms every two years starting at age 40

For women aged 40 to 74, having a mammogram every two years is a clear recommendation in official US screening guidelines. For women over 75, and for …

Cost
A mammogram costs around 200–300 yuan each time. Many regions also offer free screening pr…
Benefit
The US Preventive Services Task Force is the official body that issues screening recommend…

For women over 30, HPV testing should be the first choice for cervical cancer screening

In that rural Indian trial, women who underwent just one HPV test in their lifetime had roughly half the risk of dying from cervical cancer and about …

Cost
An HPV test costs between 100 and 300 yuan. Women with a negative result can get tested ag…
Benefit
This trial in rural India used group-level rather than individual randomization, involving…

People with cardiovascular disease and older adults should get a flu shot each year

In a trial involving people after a heart attack, the yearly death rate dropped from 4.9% to 2.9% after they received the flu vaccine. For people with…

Cost
One shot costs 50 to 150 yuan. It should be given once each autumn.
Benefit
This trial included 2,571 participants after a myocardial infarction; neither doctors nor …

Getting the shingles vaccine after age 50

In clinical trials, this vaccine proved 97% effective at preventing shingles across all age groups. The downside is that both doses cost several thous…

Cost
The recombinant shingles vaccine requires two doses, costing roughly 3,000 to 4,000 yuan i…
Benefit
This Phase 3 trial involved 15,400 participants from 18 countries. Participants were rando…

Pneumococcal vaccine for people over 65

In a trial involving 84,500 seniors, the 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine cut cases of pneumonia caused by strains it targets by roughly 46%, and reduce…

Cost
Several hundred yuan. In some regions, it is provided free of charge for seniors.
Benefit
Researchers in the Netherlands randomly assigned 84,500 seniors over 65 to two groups for …

Testing for Helicobacter pylori and eradicating it if positive

A 22-year follow-up study conducted in Linqu, Shandong, showed that individuals who had Helicobacter pylori eradicated had roughly half the risk of de…

Cost
The carbon-13 or carbon-14 breath test costs 100 to 200 yuan. Eradicating the bacteria req…
Benefit
This randomized trial in Linqu, Shandong, followed participants for 22 years. Those who un…

Heavy smokers should get a low-dose chest CT once a year

Eligible heavy smokers who get a low-dose CT once a year have a 20% lower risk of dying from lung cancer and a 6.7% lower overall risk of death compar…

Cost
The test costs 200–400 yuan per session and takes just 10 minutes. You must also factor in…
Benefit
The NLST trial in the U.S. enrolled 53,454 participants aged 55–74 with at least 30 pack-y…