Table 1.

Discounting for effects that have a probability of occurring at any age*

	Annual Discount Rate
Years of Exposure	0.02	0.05	0.1	0.2
1	0.99	0.91	0.79	0.63
10	0.98	0.79	0.57	0.37
25	0.95	0.63	0.37	0.20
50	0.91	0.43	0.20	0.10

*For a given annual discount rate and a given number of years over which an event may occur, this table provides the ratio of the discounted weight assigned to the event and the weight that would have been assigned had there been no discounting of future events. For example, if a patient with a discount rate of 0.2 is weighing the importance of a heart attack that may occur at any time over the next 10 years, he or she assigns only 37% as much importance to the possibility as would someone who does not discount the future.