The Swiss have a study out too.
They eliminated foreigners for this study.
"The median age at death of the avalanche victims in our analysis increased from 31 years in the first ten years of our study period (1995–2004: N = 123) to 42 years in the last ten years of our study period (2005–2014: N = 127). This is also reflected in the hazard for younger persons (15–39 years), which was significantly lower for the years 2005–2014 than for the years 1995–2004. Whether this is linked to an increased use of avalanche safety gear in this age group, changes in risk behaviour, or whether fewer younger people participate in these outdoor-activities, is unclear. However, similar ageing trends have also been noted for the users of the Swiss avalanche forecast, but also for avalanche victims in France [9,27]."
Snow avalanche deaths in Switzerland from 1995 to 2014—Results of a nation-wide linkage study
Objectives More than 20 people die each year in snow avalanches in Switzerland. Previous studies have primarily described these victims, but were not population based. We investigated sociodemographic factors for avalanche mortality between 1995 and 2014 in the entire Swiss resident population...journals.plos.org
Thank you for this sound Swiss paper out of Bern. I like seeing both average and median for central tendency of the studied population. Age can certainly be a risk factor but not necessarily along the causal pathway. I’d like to see a DAG, directed acyclic diagram, on the causes of avalanche fatalities.... maybe that should be MY project...
