Description: Realizing the impact of medical errors on the U.S. health care system, the Health Section commissioned a research project to measure the annual frequency of medical errors and their total measurable direct and indirect cost to the economy.

Description: The author attempts to weave together biological and environmental explanations into the mathematical approaches developed over the past two centuries so as to, in the words of two earlier authors from the actuarial profession, reground the relationship of actuarial science with cellular biology and gerontology. Also examined is the extent to which increasing wealth and higher standards of education and health contribute to happiness.