Deaths from falling out of bed in the US

It would be comforting to report that this correlation of 0.974, tracked faithfully from 2005 to 2021, represents some kind of statistical anomaly. It does not. As Americans imported more cheese — Gruyère, Manchego, the full aromatic spectrum — more Americans also died falling out of bed, in numbers that tracked each other with the precision of a very morbid metronome. The researchers who discovered this have presumably stopped eating cheese at night, just to be safe.

Both series are largely driven by demographic aging in the US population. Deaths from falls — including falls from beds — increase with age, and as the Baby Boomer cohort moved into their 60s and 70s between 2005 and 2021, fall-related fatalities rose accordingly. US cheese imports grew over the same period as American tastes became more adventurous, specialty cheese retail expanded, and trade agreements reduced import barriers, with imports rising from roughly 250,000 to over 400,000 metric tons annually. An aging population with more disposable income also imports more artisanal cheese. The two trends share a demographic engine without sharing anything else.

Demographics is the silent variable lurking behind hundreds of apparently absurd correlations. An aging, wealthier population does more of almost everything — including the things nobody would choose to do.