Correlation Of Mortality Rate With Percentage Of Population With

Clean Drinking Water

Mathematical Exploration
TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Introduction

2. Background Information

3. Obtaining Data and Plan of Investigation

4. Calculations

5. Concluding Findings

6. Bibliography
cle INTRODUCTION

My family and I have lived in countries such as India and South Africa where the availability

of clean water is scarce. Several years spent in both countries have led me to believe that

unclean water has a large effect on the well-being and health of people, especially those who

do not have a permanent home and the opportunity to receive clean water. I was privileged to

live in one of the capitals of South Africa where poverty wasn't as common and availability

of resources was easier to come by but as I would go to school and read the daily newspaper I

would see the struggle of those who lived in rural areas struggling to come across clean

water. Pregnant women who could not receive clean water to wash themselves, and children

who could not drink clean filtered water. It was sad to see but it was the reality of what was

occurring due to the lack of a necessary resource: clean water. Due to waterborne diseases,

children would catch diseases, and death at an early age was sadly common. India had a

similar case but it was more prominent, even in the capital of the country. Through my

exploration, I want to find out the extent of the struggles for clean water in 50 randomly

selected countries and find the correlation between it and the mortality rate of the population

of the country. My hypothesis is that there is a correlation between the percentage of clean

water and the mortality rate.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The mortality rate, often known as the death rate, is a measure of the number of deaths in a

given population per unit of time.1The mortality rate is a metric that measures the frequency

of deaths in a given population over a given time period. The denominator used to calculate

mortality is, in theory, the population's average number over time. The impact of a certain

1 "Health Indicators Related to Disease, Death, and Reproduction - PMC." 23 Jan. 2019,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6378386/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2023.
disease on a specific population may be studied using mortality rates. 2 Factors that contribute

to mortality rate include exhibiting characteristics of negative behavior such as smoking and

lack of exercise as well as environmental factors such as air pollution, contaminated water,

and pathogens. Diseases such as stroke, brain trauma, and Alzheimer's are among the leading

causes of death.

The formula to measure the mortality rate is as follows:

Specific Mortality Rate = Number of deaths due to a disease

Total Population

The need for clean water is significant. Water is a basic human resource needed for survival,

both for hydration and sanitation. Diseases are oftentimes spread through water as waterborne

diseases such as giardiasis, dysentery, typhoid fever, E. Coli infection, and salmonellosis.

OBTAINING DATA AND PLAN OF INVESTIGATION

Using a correlational study I will be investigating the relationship between the percentage of

people with availability of water with the mortality rate. I will be using a systematic sample

where I will be obtaining data by choosing every 6th country from The World Data bank in a

list of countries in alphabetical order so as to have a range of data and be statistically accurate

for my exploration. I will be using Pearsons Correlation Coefficient for my investigation

which will guide me in measuring the linear correlation between my two chosen sets of data.

I will be creating box graphs and scatter plots to show the limitations and strengths of my two
2 "Causes of Death - Our World in Data." https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death. Accessed 30
Nov. 2023.
variables. Through this, I will be able to answer my research question “Is there a correlation

between the percentage of clean water in a population and mortality rate?”

My Independent variable is the percentage of the population with clean water.

Dependent variable- Rate of mortality

For easier interpretation I have created a table to present this data.

Table 1: Percentage of population with clean water and rate of mortality in 60 countries

Country Percentage of Population Rate of Mortality

with Clean Water (x) (in years) (y)

 Australia 74 83

Argentina 51 75

Bolivia 53 64

Bahrain 91 79

Brazil 49 73

Chad 10 53

Croatia 68 76

Channel Islands 82 81

Cuba 37 74

Ecuador 42 72

Estonia 93 77

France 79 82

Guinea-Bissau 12 60

Greenland 92 71

Iceland 84 83

India 46 67

Jordan 82 74

Kuwait 100 79

Lebanon 16 75
 Libya 22 72

Malta 92 83

Myanmar 61 66

Montenegro 45 74

Nigeria 31 53

North Macedonia 12 75

Philippines 61 69

Puerto Rico 33 80

Sao Tome and Principe 35 68

Spain 96 83

Libya 22 72

Malta 92 83

Myanmar 61 66

Montenegro 45 74

Nigeria 31 53

North Macedonia 12 75

Philippines 61 69

Puerto Rico 33 80

Sao Tome and Principe 35 68

Spain 96 83

Sweden 95 83

Slovenia 72 81

Somalia 32 55

Tanzania 26 66

Tuvalu 6 65
 United Arab Emirates 99 79

Ukraine 72 70

Venezuela 23 71

West Bank and Gaza 67 73

Yemen 19 64

Zimbabwe 26 59

Algeria 18 76

Albania 48 76

Bulgaria 72 72

Bhutan 65 72

Chile 79 79

Czechia 85 77

Cyprus 77 81

Djibouti 37 62

Ethiopia 7 65

Ghana 13 643

3 "DataBank | The World Bank." https://databank.worldbank.org/. Accessed 30 Nov. 2023.

Table 2: 6 figures summaries for both variables
 Percentage of population Mortality Rate( y)

with clean water. (x)

Minimum value 6 53

Q1 27.25 66.25

Median 52 73.5

Q3 79 79

Maximum 100 83

Mean 53.74 72.22

Graph 1: Box plot of percentage of population with clean water

As the value of my mean is larger than that of my median, the shape of my graph is skewed

to the right indicating that the majority of my data is located on the left side of the box.

Range: maximum value - minimum value

100-6=94

IQR: Q3-Q1

79-27.25=51.75

The outliers:
The upper boundary: Q3+ 1.5 * IQR= 156.625

The lower boundary: Q1-1.5* IQR= -50.375

No outliers are present.

Graph 2: Box plot of mortality rate

As the value of my median is larger than that of my mean, the shape of my graph is skewed

to the left, indicating that most of my data is located on the right side of the box.

Range: maximum value - minimum value

83-53= 30
IQR : Q3-Q1

79-66.25=10.75

The outliers:

The upper boundary: Q3+ 1.5 * IQR= 95.125

The lower boundary: Q1-1.5* IQR= 50.125

No outliers were present in either of my box graphs.

Scatter Graph of both variables:

CALCULATIONS

I have calculated the Pearsons Correlation Coofiecient using the TI-Nspire calculator and

found the value, calculated to 3 significant figures.

r=0.671
4
A strong positive relationship is indicated by a correlation coefficient greater than zero,

while a negative relationship is indicated by a value less than zero. More specifically, a

Correlation coefficient between -0.5 and 0.5 generally indicates a very weak to moderate

correlation, while values beyond that range suggest a stronger correlation. As my Correlation

coefficient may be rounded to 0.7, it suggests that a strong correlation is present between my

two variables. Hence, justifying my hypothesis.

5
This method has the following advantages: it is easier to interpret It generates data with

improved statistical properties. However, the main disadvantage of this method is that when

the null hypothesis of the two variables is rejected, it is difficult to interpret.

CONCLUDING FINDINGS

Through the research that I have gone through for mortality rate for many countries. There

was the presence of a major environmental concern which was contaminated water. This

issue is much more prevalent in countries with scarce clean water resources but is an

important factor in every country's mortality rate. I was initially doing the research for

specifically India and South Africa as I have a personal relationship with them. I wanted to

investigate more of the countries, with both scarce water resources as well as for countries

with more developed water resources. I had faced a limitation in the beginning of my

4 "Correlation Coefficients: Positive, Negative, and Zero - Investopedia."

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/032515/what-does-it-mean-if-correlation-coefficient-
positive-negative-or-zero.asp. Accessed 1 Dec. 2023.
5 "The disadvantages of the pearson r correlation method - Course Hero."
https://www.coursehero.com/file/p4jtjlo/The-disadvantages-of-the-Pearson-r-correlation-method-are-It-
assumes-that-there/. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
investigation as my original plan of randomly gathering data from each 5th country failed to

be fully executed as there was no data available for the percentage of clean accessible water

in some countries. Therefore, I have obtained data from the following country in the list, that

being the 6th country. I went through the list and resources twice to gather a sufficient

amount of data for each country as well as to have my desired number of countries to

investigate. An additional limitation was that due to the fact that insufficient statistics were

gathered for certain countries, an equal ratio of countries with and without clean water

resources was not present which is another factor that needed to be considered.

In conclusion, throughout my research and investigation, I have concluded that my findings

suggest a positive correlation between the percentage of people with clean drinking water and

the mortality rate of that country. By the analysis of both my box graphs, my results appear to

be distributed throughout the graph which has led to a greater dispersion of data Through my

investigation and the creation of the box graphs for each variable and their scatter graphs I

have observed the absence of any outliers. According to the value that was produced by the

calculation of Pearson's coefficient coorelation I can conclude that there is a strong

correlation between my variables therefore proving my hypothesis correct.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Choi, Jeoungbin, et al. “Health Indicators Related to Disease, Death, and

Reproduction.” Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health = Yebang Uihakhoe

Chi, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Jan. 2019,

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6378386/. Accessed 01 Dec. 2023.

Dattani, Saloni, et al. “Causes of Death.” Our World in Data, 6 Nov. 2023,

ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death. Accessed 01 Dec. 2023.

“Databank.” DataBank, databank.worldbank.org/. Accessed 01 Dec. 2023.

Nickolas, Steven. “Correlation Coefficients: Positive, Negative, and Zero.”

Investopedia, www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/032515/what-does-it-mean-if-

correlation-coefficient-positive-negative-or-zero.asp. Accessed 01 Dec. 2023.

“The Disadvantages of the Pearson R Correlation Method Are It Assumes That There -

BSHS407: Course Hero.” The Disadvantages Of The Pearson R Correlation Method

Are It Assumes That There - BSHS407 | Course Hero,

www.coursehero.com/file/p4jtjlo/The-disadvantages-of-the-Pearson-r-correlation-

method-are-It-assumes-that-there/.