Question

A public health researcher wonders if the well-being of a nation’s health care system influences its infant mortality rate. To investigate this, she collected data on well-being of the health care system (the nation’s number of people per hospital bed; a lower number indicates a stronger health care system) and infant mortality rate (number of infant deaths per 1,000 births) from 6 countries.

Country Name	Infant Mortality Rate	People per hospital bed
Germany	7	95
Netherlands	7	164
Poland	14	154
Spain	6	158
United Kingdom	8	138
United States	10	198

a) Calculate the correlation between infant mortality rate and people per hospital bed in this sample of countries. Show all of your calculation work.

b) Interpret the result you obtained in a).

c) Calculate the regression for the relationship between infant mortality rate and people per hospital bed. Show all of your calculation work.

d) Interpret the results you obtained in c).

e) If a country has 150 people per hospital bed, what do the results of the analysis here predict for that country’s infant mortality rate? Show all of your work.

f) What other country-level variables may influence a country’s infant mortality rate? Give at least one and explain why you think this variable influences the infant mortality rate

Answer 1