Infant birth weights and probabilities

Today we will be examining how smoking, marital status, and length of pregnancy effect the birth weigts of infants. Our data set is the North Carolina births dataset, which has data on 1,000 births in North Carolina.

Part I: Does smoking effect birth weights of infants?

  1. Fill out the contingency table comparing birth weight status to smoking status.
  2. Use the contingency table to calculate the conditional probabilities listed in the spreadsheet.
  3. Is there evidence to suggest that mothers who smoke have lower weight infants? Justify your answer.

Part II: Does marital status effect birth weights of infants?

  1. Fill out the contingency table comparing birth weight status to marital status.
  2. Use the contingency table to calculate the conditional probabilities listed in the spreadsheet.
  3. Is there evidence to suggest that mothers who are married have lower weight infants? Justify your answer.

Part III: Does pregnancy length effect birth weights of infants?

  1. Fill out the contingency table comparing birth weight status to premie status.
  2. Use the contingency table to calculate the conditional probabilities listed in the spreadsheet.
  3. Is there evidence to suggest that mothers who have premie have lower weight infants? Justify your answer