Comparing the mortality rate of Septicaemia between black people and white peopleSepticaemia is a potentially life-threatening condition where the blood becomes poisoned due to a high number of bacteria entering the bloodstream.
It is dangerous for bacteria to enter the bloodstream because it then allows the dangerous bacteria to travel to the organs. Once it reaches this stage it is cause further complications such as organ failure and death. Septicaemia, is curable during early stages, however it can be fatal if not treated urgently.
Data representation of the mortality rate for black people and white people collected from: “Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming”. Estimated as of July 1, 2007.The most noticeable difference from first observing the graph shows is that the mortality rate for people with Septicaemia is much higher for black people than with white people. Looking at the data, it also appears that the difference in the mortality rate between white people and black people becomes drastically higher as the age range goes up. However, between the ages of 1-34 years the mortality rates for both races are extremely low compared to the other ages on the chart. The high number of deaths from the older ages may be due to the fact that the immune system slowly weakens as humans get older.
The numbers also slightly increase with babies under the age of 1. This may be because of the vulnerability of very young children as their immune systems are not yet fully developed. However, the values are also still higher for black people than for white people.
From these results, we can conclude that black people are more susceptible to dying from septicaemia than white people.Unfortunately, the mortality rates for black people for the age groups of 1-4 and 5-14 were not provided, showing only an asterisk by those labels on the original database. This 3D bar chart was chosen au lieu of the 2D equivalent because of its inability to show the smaller values (values from 1-34) without having to zoom in very close to the graph.
As they were not easily seen without zooming, the results could have been easily mistaken for being zero which would be misleading and inaccurate. Another benefit from this graph is that it also shows both subjects side by side which allows them to be easily compared. The bar chart is also an effective way of representing data; it converts comparative values from tables, etc.
to a more easily comprehensive way. This makes it very consumer friendly as it is easy to interpret.Nonetheless, there are still other valid options for representing this data.
For example, a scatter graph could have been made represent these results, however, some of the results for white and black people were very close and a scatter graph would most likely cluster the data points too closely and make it difficult to differentiate between the two categories (white people and black people). References:CDC/NCHS (2007) Worktable 250R. Death rates for 113 selected causes, alcohol-induced causes, drug-induced causes, and injury by firearms, by 10-year age groups, race, and sex: United States. Available at: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/MortFinal2007_Worktable250R.pdf (Accessed: 08/12/2017)GOSH NHS Foundation (2011) Septicaemia. Available at: http://www.
gosh.nhs.uk/medical-information/septicaemia (Accessed: 12/12/17)The University of Leicester(2017) Bar Charts. Available at: https://www2.le.
ac.uk/offices/ld/resources/numerical-data/bar-charts (Accessed: 12/12/17)Gilani, N (2017) The advantages of bar graphs. Available at: https://sciencing.com/advantages-bar-graphs-6822794.html (Accessed: 12/12/17)
