You were asked: What general trend can you observe from your graph?

The graph you have drawn is a scatter diagram, so-called because the points are scattered about. However, you can see a definite pattern or trend. In general, as the headcount index increases, so too does the under-five mortality rate for a country.
So you can conclude that there is a link or correlation between poverty (as measured by the headcount index) and child mortality. If the points were scattered about with no pattern, you would conclude there is no correlation. The graph shows a positive correlation; as one indicator increases so does the other. A pattern at right angles to the one you have drawn would show a negative correlation. It would mean that as one indicator increases, the other decreases. This would occur if you plotted an opposite indicator to under-five mortality rate, such as life expectancy, against headcount index.. So does the positive correlation between headcount index and under-five mortality rate show that poverty causes disease?

The answer, unfortunately, is not so simple, as we shall see on the next page.

  < previous   next > Page 2 of 4

Comments