Setup

Load packages

library(ggplot2)
library(dplyr)

Load data

load("brfss2013.RData")

Part 1: Data

The data used for this analysis was obtained from The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Project. BRFSS is an ongoing surveillance system designed to measure behavioral risk factors for the noninstitutionalized adult population (18 years of age and older) residing in the US. The data was collected over time through monthly telephone interviews (BRFSS Codebook). While the BRFSS landline telephone survey was conducted from a randomly selected adult in a household, the cellular telephone version collected data from an adult who participates by using a cellular telephone and resides in a private residence or college housing. Random sampling of the individuals surveyed is caried out, thus can generalize to the US population. Since this is a survey and an observational study we can only establish an association between the explanatory and response variables, but casuality cannot be inferred. The potential bias for the telephone survey might be that it does not cover people who do not have access to telephone. For this analysis three categorical variable were selected: Health Care Coverage (hlthpln1), General Health (genhlth), Multiple Health Care Professionals (persdoc2). A brief general summary of the progect data is shown below.

hPlan = brfss2013$hlthpln1
SEX = brfss2013$sex
genHealth = brfss2013$genhlth
noofDoctors = brfss2013$persdoc2
projectdata <- cbind(SEX, hPlan, genHealth, noofDoctors)
summary(projectdata)
##       SEX            hPlan         genHealth      noofDoctors   
##  Min.   :1.000   Min.   :1.000   Min.   :1.000   Min.   :1.000  
##  1st Qu.:1.000   1st Qu.:1.000   1st Qu.:2.000   1st Qu.:1.000  
##  Median :2.000   Median :1.000   Median :3.000   Median :1.000  
##  Mean   :1.591   Mean   :1.113   Mean   :2.576   Mean   :1.409  
##  3rd Qu.:2.000   3rd Qu.:1.000   3rd Qu.:3.000   3rd Qu.:1.000  
##  Max.   :2.000   Max.   :2.000   Max.   :5.000   Max.   :3.000  
##  NA's   :7       NA's   :1904    NA's   :1985    NA's   :1801

Part 2: Research questions

My observation/ and hypothesis is that perception of general health condition, health care coverage, and cost limitations to see multiple doctors and helath care provider vary between men and women. I wanted to back my observation with the following analysis. The analysis in this document is intended to answer the following research questions based on data from The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS):

Research quesion 1: Is there any association between gender and health insurance coverage?

Research question 1 is based on the the following survey question and the responses recorded from individuals surveyed for the study:

“The Do you have any kind of health care coverage, including health insurance, prepaid plans such as HMOs, or government plans such as Medicare, or Indian Health Service?”"

Research quesion 2: Is there association between gender and perception of general health condition?

Research question 2 is based on the the following survey question and the responses recorded from individuals surveyed for the study:

“Would you say that in general your health is excellent, very good, good, fair, poor, or don’t know/not sure”

Research quesion 3: Is there association between gender and Number of health care professionals seen?

Research question 3 is based on the the following survey question and the responses recorded from individuals surveyed for the study:

“Do you have one person you think of as your personal doctor or health care provider? (If”No" ask “Is there more than one or is there no person who you think of as your personal doctor or health care provider?”.)"

Part 3: Exploratory data analysis

Research quesion 1:

by(SEX, hPlan, summary)
## hPlan: Yes
##   Male Female   NA's 
## 174609 259960      2 
## -------------------------------------------------------- 
## hPlan: No
##   Male Female 
##  25761  29539
plot(brfss2013$sex, brfss2013$hlthpln1, xlab = "SEX", ylab = "Health Care Coverage", main =
"Figure 1 - Gender versus Health Care Coverage")

Figure 1 shows the proportions of male and female respondents who responded eaither “yes”, or “no” to having a health care coverage. From the plot, while it appears both males and females responded in a similar manner, more females than males seem to have health care coverage. The data summary shows that 489,871 people participated in the survey. The subjects that were included in this study were male and female adults above the ages of 18. out of a total of 489,871 people who responded to the survey question 289,499 were women and 200,370 were men. Responses reported as “NA” were excluded from the dataset.

Research quesion 2:

by(SEX, genHealth, summary)
## genHealth: Excellent
##   Male Female   NA's 
##  35741  49740      1 
## -------------------------------------------------------- 
## genHealth: Very good
##   Male Female   NA's 
##  65135  93940      1 
## -------------------------------------------------------- 
## genHealth: Good
##   Male Female 
##  62998  87557 
## -------------------------------------------------------- 
## genHealth: Fair
##   Male Female 
##  25882  40844 
## -------------------------------------------------------- 
## genHealth: Poor
##   Male Female 
##  10713  17238
plot(brfss2013$sex, brfss2013$genhlth, xlab = "SEX", ylab = "General Health Perception", main =
"Figure 2 - Gender versus General Health Perception")

Figure 2 shows the proportions of male and female respondents who responded about their general health condition. From the plot, it appears both males and females responded in a similar manner. The data summary shows that about 80% of the participants responded that they have either excellent, very good, or good health condition.

Research quesion 3:

by (SEX, noofDoctors, summary)
## noofDoctors: Yes, only one
##   Male Female   NA's 
## 140520 228534      2 
## -------------------------------------------------------- 
## noofDoctors: More than one
##   Male Female 
##  16034  25300 
## -------------------------------------------------------- 
## noofDoctors: No
##   Male Female 
##  43858  35726
plot(brfss2013$sex, brfss2013$medcost, xlab = "SEX", ylab = "Multiple Health Care Professionals", main =
"Figure 3 - Gender versus Cost Limitation")

Figure 3 shows the proportions of male and female respondents who responded eaither “yes”, or “no” to having seen multiple health care providers. From the plot, while it appears both males and females responded in a similar manner, more females than males seem to have seen multiple doctors. The data summary shows that 489,871 people participated in the survey. Out of a total of 489,871 people who responded to the survey question 289,560 were women and 200,412 were men. Only about 10% of men and 15% of women responded that they have seen multiple doctors.

Conclusion

An analysis using data from The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) Project was carried out to determine if there is any association between gender and perceptions of helth condition, helath care coverge, and if multiple health care providers were seen. The results show that both men and women show similar perception of their health condition. Both also appear to have similar proportions of health care coverage. Women appear to have seen more doctors than men. The analysis in general indicated that ther was no association between gender (“Sex”) and the selected variables ((hlthpln1, genhlth, persdoc2).