Matson 1

Daniel Matson
9/19/13
Kiker
Algebra II per. 1
Regression Project Write Up
While measles and child mortality arent big issues in the United States, they are in other
parts of the world. I chose to compare child mortality rate with percent measles immunization. I
thought that this comparison would be interesting to draw conclusions from. This data
comparison is relevant to parents of new borns who are considering getting the measles
immunization for their child.
Child Mortality Rates vs. Percent Measles Immunizations
in 2011

Percent
Measles
Immunization


Child Mortality Rate

Matson 2
The regression equation I used for my data was, y = -7.4x^4 + .0015x^3 + -.097x^2 +
1.845x^1 + 86.6. I chose to use the quartic parents function because it best represented my data.
Going off the trend line from the scatterplot, the data is showing that while child mortality rates
are rising, the percent measles immunization slowly declines, meaning that the data has a
negative correlation.
The slope can also be interpreted to mean that the measles immunizations are keeping
many more children from getting sick and dying. This data might also be relevant to government
officials deciding on whether or not to increase funding for health care programs, because since
measles immunizations is a relatively prominent vaccination, this data can also be used to show
the basic level of health care in a country, and how it correlates with child mortality rates.
Government officials are very important in our society, as they create and enforce all of our laws
and regulations and implement certain policies and procedures in our country.
Three y values that I predicted for x values in the data set were a 90 y value for an x
value of 8.6, a y value of 60 for an x value of 105, and 100 for an x value of .1. The meaning of
each of these is that the higher the child mortality rate is, the lower the immunization percent is.
The r squared value of my data was .924, meaning that the quartic parent function had a
relatively close fit for the data.
Conclusions I am able to make about my data are that measles isnt a very deadly disease,
but it is a great indicator of a certain countrys stage in health care and access to basic medial
supplies and procedures, since the measles vaccination is fairly prominent, even in less
developed countries. This is because many countries have a high measles immunization percent
and a low child mortality rate meaning that this vaccination is a very common one. Other

Matson 3
conclusions that can be made are about which countries have better health care systems than
others. For example, the United States has a 90% measles immunization and 7.3 child mortality
rate while, China has a 99% measles immunization but a 14.9 child mortality rate, meaning that
while the vaccination is more available, other medical care may not be as widely available.

Matson 4
Works Cited
"World DataBank." The World Bank DataBank. The World Bank Group, Sept. 23, 2013. Web.
"Measles." History of Vaccines. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Sept. 23, 2013.
Web.