Kevin Lin

Statistics 312-74, Fall 2010

Final Project

Is blood pressure in summer lower than blood pressure in fall?

The data used for this project belonged to my mother’s weekly self-recording of blood pressures
beginning since summer until now. Blood pressure measurements have two numbers, systolic
and diastolic, but I will only be using the systolic (top number) numbers given to me over the last
6 months. The units will be in millimeters of mercury (mmHg). In order to answer the question
above, I had to use a two sample t-test. To keep it simple, I kept the alpha value to still be 0.05.

Data:
Summer (mmHg) Fall (mmHg)
173 172
178 174
181 176
202 168
154 181
162 190
163 169
153 182
149 177
157 183
153 173
159 179
In this particular collection of data, summer would be the months June to August and fall will be
the months September to November. Blood pressure (systolic) was measured every week
between those months, hence the two set of twelve numbers.

Graphical Summaries:

Summary for Summer (mmHg)

A nderson-Darling Normality Test
A -Squared 0.62
P-V alue 0.082

Mean 165.33
StDev 15.48
V ariance 239.52
Skewness 1.32955
Kurtosis 1.56322
N 12

Minimum 149.00
1st Quartile 153.25
Median 160.50
3rd Quartile 176.75
150 160 170 180 190 200 Maximum 202.00
95% Confidence I nterval for Mean
155.50 175.17
95% Confidence I nterval for Median
153.26 176.68
95% Confidence I nterval for StDev
95% Confidence I ntervals
10.96 26.28
Mean

Median

150 155 160 165 170 175 180

 Summary for Fall (mmHg)
Anderson-Darling Normality Test
A -Squared 0.16
P-Value 0.932

Mean 177.00
StDev 6.37
V ariance 40.55
Skewness 0.486774
Kurtosis 0.028336
N 12

Minimum 168.00
1st Quartile 172.25
Median 176.50
3rd Q uartile 181.75
170 175 180 185 190 Maximum 190.00
95% Confidence I nterval for Mean
172.95 181.05
95% Confidence I nterval for Median
172.26 181.74
95% Confidence I nterval for StDev
95% Confidence I ntervals
4.51 10.81
Mean

Median

172 174 176 178 180 182

Pooled or unpooled:
Test
Method DF1 DF2 Statistic P-Value
F Test (normal) 11 11 5.91 0.006
Levene's Test (any continuous) 1 22 3.20 0.087

Since it is a two sample t-test, I had to figure out whether it is pooled or unpooled. To do so, I
had to perform a two sample F-test. In a two sample F-test, the null hypothesis is equal variances
and the alternative hypothesis is unequal variances. Since the p-value (0.006) is less than alpha
(0.05), I reject the null hypothesis, which also means unpooled.

Normal or not normal:

I used the Anderson-Darling Normality Test in each graphical summary to see if it is possible to
assume that the two samples’ populations are normally distributed. Null hypothesis states that the
population is normally distributed, while the alternative hypothesis states that the population is
not normally distributed. I failed to reject the null hypotheses because both p-values in the
Anderson-Darling Normality Test for summer and fall, 0.082 and 0.932 respectively, were
greater than alpha (0.05). Therefore it was safe to assume that the two samples are normally
distributed with 95% confidence.

Two sample t-test:

Null Hypothesis: Blood pressure is unaffected by the season.

H0: μS = μF
Alternative Hypothesis: Blood pressure in the summer is less than blood pressure in the fall.
HA: μs < μF

Alpha: α = 0.05
Results of the two sample t-test:
Two-sample T for Summer (mmHg) vs Fall (mmHg)

N Mean StDev SE Mean

Summer (mmHg) 12 165.3 15.5 4.5
Fall (mmHg) 12 177.00 6.37 1.8

Difference = mu (Summer (mmHg)) - mu (Fall (mmHg))

Estimate for difference: -11.67
95% upper bound for difference: -3.16
T-Test of difference = 0 (vs <): T-Value = -2.41 P-Value = 0.015 DF = 14

Since the p-value (0.032) is less than the alpha value (0.05), I can reject the null hypothesis. I am
95% confident that blood pressure lower in the summer than in the fall.

Conclusion:

Based on my mother’s blood pressure, I can say that blood pressure is generally higher in the fall
than in the summer with 95% confidence. For the sake of my mother’s health, I did a check
online to make sure her blood pressure reacting normally. I found out that blood pressure is
higher in colder weathers, which in this case would be fall as oppose to summer.