HH/HLST 2300: Quantitative Research Methods in Health Studies

Fall Term Assignment 3

Assigned: Saturday October 15, 2016; Due 5PM Friday November 4, 2016
Submit 1 file for Assignment 3: PDF
PDF document name: LASTNAME_FIRSTNAME_FTAssignment3
Submit via Moodle
Note1: FT Assignment 3 is worth a total of 76 marks. Therefore, assignments submitted late were
deducted 3.8 marks per day (76 * 0.05 = 3.8)
Note2: If you did not submit a PDF file, 0.5 marks were deducted.
Note3: If you did not use the proper assignment naming convention, 0.5 marks were deducted.
Note4: For some questions, I have included the steps and/or screenshots of the steps I took to
generate the tables/figures for added clarity. Please note that unless otherwise asked of you, these
screenshots did not need to be included in your submission.

1. A researcher has collected data for 227 residents of three local long-term care (LTC) facilities (Excel
file: 2300FTassignment3.xls). The data includes the unique resident identifier, LTC site (North site =
1; East site = 2; West site = 3), gender (female = 1; male = 2), responses to four likert scale survey
statements about services: Q1(I receive assistance to meet my personal care needs), Q2(Food
provided by the kitchen is palatable), Q3(The overall LTC environment is clean) and Q4(The variety
of activities offered by the LTC meets my needs). The likert scale responses to all 4 statements
include the following options: 4 = always; 3 = most of the time; 2 = sometimes; 1 = rarely; 0 = never.
Additionally, four scale variables, quality of life (QOL) score, needs assessment (NA) score, systolic
blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure are also provided.
a) Generate a stacked bar graph such that each bar represents a site and the stacks represent the
percentage that are male and female for each site. Add data labels. Copy and paste the
generated SPSS stacked bar graph. [5 MARKS]

Graphs, Chart Builder

Some of the typical errors found in Question 1a:

Did not produce stacked bar graph [-5 MARKS]
X-axis is not site [-1 MARK]
Y-axis is not percentage [-1 MARK]
Gender identified as numbers rather than labels [-0.5 MARKS]
Sites identified as numbers rather than labels [-0.5 MARKS]
Did not include data labels [-0.5 MARKS]
Percents produced are different (rounding is okay) [-1.5 MARKS]

b) Generate a stacked bar graph such that each bar represents a different likert scale question (Q1Q4) and the stacks represent the percent of each response category (4 = always; 3 = most of the
time; 2 = sometimes; 1 = rarely; 0 = never). Add data labels (0 decimal places). Copy and paste
the generated SPSS stacked bar graph. [13 MARKS]
Analyze, Tables, Custom tables

Some of the typical errors found in Question 1b:

Did not produce stacked bar graph where each bar represents a different survey question I
show the bars running horizontally, but vertical bars are also okay [-13 MARKS]
Likert scale responses are not stacked [-2 MARKS]
Questions identified as numbers rather than labels [-1 MARK]
4

Likert scale responses identified as numbers rather than labels [-0.5 MARKS]
Did not include data labels [-0.5 MARKS]
Did not round data labels to 0 decimal places as instructed [-0.5 MARKS]
Percents produced are different [-2 MARKS]

c) Generate a clustered bar graph of the mean NA scores by gender, clustered by site. Include +/1 standard deviation. Add data labels. Copy and paste the generated SPSS clustered bar graph.
[7 MARKS]
Graphs, Legacy Dialog, Bar, Clustered, Summaries for groups of cases,

Some of the typical errors found in Question 1c:

Did not produce clustered bar graph [-7 MARKS]
X-axis is not gender [-1 MARK]
Did not cluster by site [-1 MARK]
Y-axis is not mean needs assessment score [-1 MARK]
Did not include +/-1 standard deviation error bars [-1 MARK]
Gender identified as numbers rather than labels [-0.5 MARKS]
Sites identified as numbers rather than labels [-0.5 MARKS]
Did not include data labels [-0.5 MARKS]
Mean needs assessment scores produced are different (rounding is okay) [-1.5 MARKS]

d) Generate a population pyramid of NA scores split by systolic categories. Note systolic categories
are defined as follows: normal (<120) and hypertension (120). Copy and paste the generated
SPSS population pyramid. [7 MARKS]

Graphs, Legacy Dialog, Population Pyramid

Some of the typical errors found in Question 1d:

Did not produce population pyramid [-7 MARKS]
Split pyramid by variable other than systolic category (normal vs hypertension or alternatively
<120 and 120); its okay if the panel on the right is normal and the panel on the left is
hypertension) [-2 MARKS]
Y-axis is not needs assessment score [-1 MARK]
Needs assessment incorrectly labeled as nominal rather than correctly as scalar (this would
produce a population pyramid with gaps or spaces in between the bars) [-1 MARK]
Distribution of frequencies produced is different (will happen if recoded systolic into normal vs
hypertension incorrectly) [-3 MARKS]
Systolic categories identified as numbers rather than labels [-0.5 MARKS]

e) Generate a scatterplot between a patients systolic blood pressure (x-axis) and their diastolic
blood pressure (y-axis) by gender. Add individual fit lines for males and females. Copy and
paste the generated SPSS scatterplot. In males, how much variation in diastolic blood pressure
is accounted for by the regression equation? In females, for every one unit increase in systolic
blood pressure, how much does diastolic blood pressure increase? [10 MARKS]

Graphs, Chart Builder

In the Chart Editor Window, Choose Elements, Fit line at subgroups

In males, 47.1% of variation in diastolic blood pressure is accounted for by the regression equation.
In females, for every one unit increase in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure increases
by 0.48 units.
Some of the typical errors found in Question 1e:
Did not produce scatterplot [-6 MARKS]
X-axis is not systolic [-1 MARK]
Y-axis is not diastolic [-1 MARK]
Scatterplot is not specific to gender [-3 MARKS]
Coefficients of regression equations different [-1 MARK]
Did not answer question about variation in diastolic blood pressure in males [-2 MARKS]
Answered question about variation in diastolic blood pressure in males incorrectly [-1 MARK]
Did not answer question about what happens to diastolic blood pressure in females for every
unit increase in systolic blood pressure [-2 MARKS]
Answered question about what happens to diastolic blood pressure in females for every unit
increase in systolic blood pressure incorrectly [-1 MARK]

10

2. The following table shows the numbers of patients classified according to their smoking and asthma
status.

Asthma
No Asthma
Total

Smokes daily

Smokes some days

167
1124
1291

54
366
420

Formerly
smoked
242
1957
2199

Never
smoked
306
3553
3859

Total
769
7000
7769

If a patient is selected at random (leave all answers in fractional form):

a) What is the probability that they were a former smoker? [2 MARKS]

b) What is the probability that they have asthma and smoke daily? [2 MARKS]

c) What proportion of asthmatics never smoked? [2 MARKS]

d) What is the probability that they had asthma given that they never smoked? [2 MARKS]

e) What proportion of daily smokers are asthmatic? [2 MARKS]

f)

What is the probability that they smoked some days given that they didnt have asthma?
[2 MARKS]

Some of the typical errors found in Questions 2a-f:

Incorrect numerator [-1 MARK]
Incorrect denominator [-1 MARK]
g) Are asthma and daily smoking independent? Show your calculations. [6 MARKS]
Asthma and daily smoking are independent if

11

= 0.10
Since

, asthma and daily smoking are not independent.

Alternatively,
Asthma and daily smoking are independent if

= 0.17
Since

, asthma and daily smoking are not independent.

Some of the typical errors found in Question 2g:

Failed to mention that IF conditions A and B are independent THEN P(A|B) = P(A). A number of
students stated P(A|B) = P(A) but made no mention that this only holds when A and B are
independent of each other [-1 MARK]
For P(asthmasmokes daily) or alternatively for P(smokes dailyasthma), incorrect numerator [-1
MARK]
For P(asthmasmokes daily) or alternatively for P(smokes dailyasthma), incorrect denominator [1 MARK]
For P(asthma) or alternatively for P(smokes daily), incorrect numerator [-1 MARK]
For P(asthma) or alternatively for P(smokes daily), incorrect denominator [-1 MARK]
Did not state that since the two fractions are not equal, then the two conditions are not
independent. A number of students stated that A and B are not independent but did not relate
this back to the fact that the two fractions are not equal [-1 MARK]

3. Imagine a blood test for bone cancer, tried out on 250 patients admitted with pain. The actual
presence or absence of bone cancer was diagnosed from biopsy. The results are shown in the table.

Screen positive
Screen negative
Total

Bone cancer present

50
13
63

Bone cancer absent

75
112
187

Note: Leave all answers in fractional form.

12

Total
125
125
250

a. Compute the specificity of the test. [2 MARKS]

b. What proportion of diagnosed bone cancers were screened positive with the blood test?
[2 MARKS]

c. If bone cancer is present, what is the probability that the blood test will be positive? [2 MARKS]

d. What is the positive predictive value of the blood test? [2 MARKS]

e. If the blood test comes out positive, what is the probability that the patient will actually have
bone cancer? [2 MARKS]

f.

If the blood test comes out negative, what is the probability that the patient will be healthy?
[2 MARKS]

13

g. If the patient is healthy, what is the probability that the blood test will be negative? [2 MARKS]

h. Compute the false negative fraction of the blood test. [2 MARKS]

Some of the typical errors found in Questions 3a-h:

Incorrect numerator [-1 MARK]
Incorrect denominator [-1 MARK]

14