Q. 4.1 - The Practice of Statistics for AP

Question

Canada has universal health care. The United States does not but often offers more elaborate treatment to patients with access. How do the two systems compare in treating heart attacks? Researchers compared random samples of $2600$ U.S. and $400$ Canadian heart attack patients. One key outcome was the patients’ own assessment of their quality of life relative to what it had been before the heart attack. Here are the data for the patients who survived a year:

$\begin{array}{|ccc|}\hline \text{ Quality of life }& \text{ Canada }& \text{ United States }\\ \text{ Much better }& 75& 541\\ \text{ Somewhat better }& 71& 498\\ \text{ About the same }& 96& 779\\ \text{ Somewhat worse }& 50& 282\\ \text{ Much worse }& 19& 65\\ \text{ Total }& 311& 2165\\ \hline\end{array}$

Construct an appropriate graph to compare the distributions of opinions about the quality of life among heart attack patients in Canada and the United States. 

Step-by-Step Solution

Answer

The graph is:

Step 1: Given Information

The data of heart attack patients quality of life for Canada and United States is given below

$\begin{array}{|ccc|}\hline \text{ Quality of life }& \text{ Canada }& \text{ United States }\\ \text{ Much better }& 75& 541\\ \text{ Somewhat better }& 71& 498\\ \text{ About the same }& 96& 779\\ \text{ Somewhat worse }& 50& 282\\ \text{ Much worse }& 19& 65\\ \text{ Total }& 311& 2165\\ \hline\end{array}$

Step 2: Graph

The sample sizes are different for Canada and United States heart attack patients. So we compare the individuals in each country and their quality of life, and we make a segmented bar graph to compare these two distributions.

Graph

Step 3: Explanation

Here from the plot, we can say that the percentage of patients who feel much better, Somewhat better about their quality of life in Canada and the United States are approximately equal. The percentage of patients who feel much worse and somewhat worse are more in Canada when compared to that of heart patients in the United States. The percentage of patients who feel about the same is more in the United States when compared to patients in Canada. Even though there are slight differences in the distribution of quality of life, we can approximately say that there is not much difference in the quality of life among heart attack patients in the U.S and Canada with reference to the plot.