Statistical outline of scuba diving

[FlyingSquid]

I would like to extend this question I posted.

What are good sources of quantitative / statistical data about scuba diving? I would expect someone, somewhere gathered facts and figures about the industry, ranging from number of divers total and by region, money spent and generated, locations that attract more people, numbers by certification agencies, timelines, accidents, equipment, and so on.

I've just shared here one such source. What I find to be positive about this example, however limited to the specific subject of fatalities, is that it's based on big numbers, not on hearsay:
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ac...tics-what-kills-people-most-scuba-diving.html

If you can share with others here more links like this, specific or comprehensive in scope, I'm sure it will be appreciated.

 

[FlyingSquid]

Wow, no replies. Seems like we are short of good stats compilations in the scuba world or they're not very known to divers.

 

[Hickdive]

How many divers are there in the world?

How many dives do they do per year?

Nobody has an accurate answer to either question so any statistical analyses of any aspect of diving is flawed from the outset.

 

[FlyingSquid]

How many divers are there in the world?

How many dives do they do per year?

Nobody has an accurate answer to either question so any statistical analyses of any aspect of diving is flawed from the outset.

Maybe nobody cared much about collecting and analyzing some statistics of diving, for any reason. One reason certainly is not that there is complete infeasibility in collecting, analyzing and estimating data, especially the ones you cited. People study and compile data of much trickier and more complicated markets than diving.

I haven't found anything substantial, but I'm pretty sure it's out there.

 

[goflyplanes]

Ok I'm adding this to my list of why scubaearth would be AWESOME if Padi actually made it useful. They could easily compile stats on the amount of dives, where people are diving, what shops they are using, etc etc, how many divers are diving regularly, maybe even make a deal with suunto and sync dive profiles... But no instead we have a maddeningly useless system that does no one any good at all.

 

[Hickdive]

Maybe nobody cared much about collecting and analyzing some statistics of diving, for any reason. One reason certainly is not that there is complete infeasibility in collecting, analyzing and estimating data, especially the ones you cited. People study and compile data of much trickier and more complicated markets than diving.

I haven't found anything substantial, but I'm pretty sure it's out there.

You can estimate all you want but that's all.

Have a look at this;

http://www.rf30.org/final2012/wp-co.../Denoble_Diving-fatalities-by-numbers_PDF.pdf

As can be seen, the figures for participants/dives are pretty much plucked out of thin air.

 

[Steve_C]

Give me some statistics is a pretty vague request. Last year I did 8 dives with buddy AL is a statistic. If you gave a better indication of what kinds of statistics you wanted and over what period and for what geographical locations and for what purposes it might be helpful.

 

[Rich Keller]

I have heard about stats from DAN that go into causes but nothing about the type of dive or training level of the diver. I would like to see stats per year for the US of diving fatalities that tell you what type of dive was being made, how deep, what level of training the diver had, type of equipment used and years of experience or number of dives the diver had.

 

[Bob DBF]

Good luck, since sport diving is not government regulated, there is no need to report any statistics of any sort. Whatever marketing information that is collected would held by the company involved and is not likely to be shared accuratly where it could be used by a competitor.

Dan keeps information on their members and any incidents they are involved with, but that being said, last I heard they have no mechanism to track down and investigate every SCUBA fatality in the US, nevermind the world.

How many divers complete logs and would send the info to a reporting agency?

Last, but not least, how accurate is any data that would be self reported and incomplete?


Bob
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I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.

 

[FlyingSquid]

You can estimate all you want but that's all.

Have a look at this;

http://www.rf30.org/final2012/wp-co.../Denoble_Diving-fatalities-by-numbers_PDF.pdf

As can be seen, the figures for participants/dives are pretty much plucked out of thin air.

That's a nice source, thank you. I much encourage people to have a look at that link.

Why "plucked out of thin air"? They differ by source. It's expected that BSAC members make more dives/year per person than the whole US population. And the fatality rates across agencies and locations vary but not tremendously, staying in the 0.5 to 4 deaths per 100,000 dives. That's pretty consistent, IMO.

On page 4 we see the other causes apart from the 41% due to OOA. We also see sequences of triggers and root causes.