HLTH2110 2021 S2 Assignment
The completed assignment must be submitted through Turnitin on iLearn by 11:59pm, Friday 10th September.
The assignment must be word processed and submitted as one pdf file. See unit guide for details.
Answers must be presented in order and clearly numbered. Graphs may be constructed in Excel. All graphs should be formatted to include appropriate titles and axes and should be presented clearly. Marks will be deducted for work (including computer output) that is not well presented. Refer to the unit guide regarding late submission and any unavoidable disruption.
Question 1 (8 marks)
Chronic pain is a common health problem with substantial consequences for the individual’s health, social and economic wellbeing.
Epidemiological studies have provided evidence of a link between low birth weight and chronic pain. Long-term follow-up studies conducted on adolescents with perinatal measurements such as birth weight, gestational age, and 1-and 5- minute Apgar scores along with the pain scores obtained at the time of study using SF- 36 survey can allow researchers to understand the association between low birth weight and chronic pain. Ninety-four percent of babies born in Australia have a birth weight between 2.5 and 4.5 kg.
Assuming that the birth weight of babies in Australia follow a normal distribution with an average of 3.12 kg and standard deviation of 0.441 kg, answer the following questions.
You may use Excel for this question but you should include either a hand drawn diagram, or a Minitab distribution curve, with relevant areas shaded in your solution to each part.
● Birth weight of less than 2.5 kg has been linked to a variety of health problems. What is the probability that a randomly selected baby has a birth weight of less than 2.5 kg?
Give your answer to 4 dp. (2marks)
● In general, 0.7% of the babies in the population are considered to have high birth weight. Find the minimum birth weight of a baby who falls into a high birth weight category. Give your answer to 3 dp. (2 marks)
● A paediatric ward in a women’s hospital had 7 births on a single day. What is the probability that the average weight of the newborns would be above 3 kg? Give your answers to 4 dp. (2 marks)
● Out of 34 babies born in a week at the hospital, how many would you expect to have a birth weight of 2.8 kg or less? (2 marks)
Question 2 (8 marks)
A study was conducted to examine the association of birth weight to back pain in 32 adolescents. The data consists of participants with and without back pain, their birth weight, gestation age and gender.
Variable Description Subject Subject number Wgt Birth weight of the subject in grams Gest Gestational age Backpain Yes = Presence of back pain when adolescent, No = Absence of back pain when adolescent Gender 0= Female, 1=Male
Use the backpain2021.xlsx data file that is available on iLearn to produce graphical summaries to address the given research questions. Add comments on any trends and/or relationships. Marks will be deducted for output that is not clearly labelled (both titles and category names) or not well presented (eg. do not have page breaks in the middle of the output for any part of the question). You may use Excel or Minitab to obtain the graphical summaries.
● Does the birth weight of these adolescents depend on the gestational age? (2 marks)
● Is there an association between birth weight and back pain? (2 marks)
● Is it reasonable to assume that the birth weight of this sample comes from a normally distributed
population? (2 marks) Is there a significant association between back pain and gender? (2 marks)
