Project 1. REPORT

The aim of this week‘s project was to determine whether relationships exist between pollution and asthma hospitilization rates in the 9 counties of the San Francisco Bay Area, and thus where best to allocate pubic health funds in terms of staffing and supplies.  

Public Health Analysis. Part 1. Demographics

Part 1 focused on how many people lived in each county, where the largest numbers of uninsured people lived and whether there was a correlation between lack of insurance and indirect indicators of poverty (race and female-headed households). 

Public Health Analysis. Part 2. Take a closer look at Asthma

In Part 2 we looked at the relationship between asthma hospitilization rates, pollution and racial composition of the population.  As can be seen in the map below, the proportion of African Americans in a county was strongly correlated with the asthma hospitilization rates. 

Unfortunately I ran out of time to complete all the maps.  This was a somewhat frustrating week as the goalposts shifted in terms of deliverables.  However, I guess that happens with deliverables in the real world too.  Hopefully the coming projects will go more smoothly as we now have a better understanding of how this module will work.