| HSA 523 Health Data Analysis
Spring 2006 |
Dr.
Robert Jantzen
Economics Department |
| Where and When
In the Spring of 2006, this course meets on Thursday nights at 6:30
p.m. in Doorley 118.
Course DescriptionThis course will develop the principles of data analysis. The course will first focus on data collection, then descriptive statistics, and finally inferential statistics. The course will integrate computerized statistical methods throughout. No prerequisites. 3 credits.Course ObjectivesThe primary objective of this course is to make students competent practitioners of statistical analysis, capable of collecting, describing and making inferences from data.This course will rely principally on lecture and discusssion, augmented
by SPSS statistical programming demonstrations and labs.
Text:
Course Requirements and Grading:Homework will be assigned nearly every class and students are strongly urged to complete those assignments. However, student grades in this course will reflect assessment only in the following areas:Exam #1
(relative weight = .50)
The final course grade will be computed by
taking the weighted average of the best 2 of the above 3 grades.
In addition, academic dishonesty will be penalized as follows: plagiarism
(the copying of text from other sources without the use of quotation marks
and proper citation) and/or cheating will result in a grade of F for the
paper/exam involved. Lastly, students having excessive absences
(five or more) will receive the grade of FA (failed for absence).
The term project will require the student to analyze the relationships between (1) some dependent variable and at least three explanatory variables, or (2) some explanatory variable and at least three dependent variables. Students may assemble data themselves, use one of the data bases described below or utilize published summary statistics. The project must be submitted as a single document, double spaced, in a standard word processing format (i.e., *doc or *pdf). Charts and tables should be included in the body of the text, while additional statistical results generated by SPSS/Phstat/Excel should be included in an Appendix. A. Organization and Content: The following describes how the term project should be organized, and what information should be included in each section: Section Content
B. Data Bases: You may use one of the following databases to complete the term project, or you may collect data on your own and create your own database using the SPSS program. To examine the contents of any of the databases listed below, first click on a file's link. If SPSS is installed on the computer you are using, the SPSS program should start up and display the data in that file. If the SPSS program doesn't start when you click on the file link, you'll first have to save the file to your floppy/zip disk or the hard drive, and then start up the SPSS program. Once the file is opened and the data is displayed, you can get an overview of the contents of the file by clicking on Utilities, and then clicking on File Info. You’ll probably be better off printing out the list of variables and the descriptions provided because it could be lengthy and won’t fit entirely on the screen. If you want more specific information on any of the variables in the data base, open the file, then click on Utilities and then click on Variables, and then click on the name of the variable you’re interested in getting more information about in the Variables box. SPSS will then list detailed information on the variable, including label values, for you. The names of the databases and a brief description of each file’s contents are: USDATA.SAV
database contains monthly (starting in January 1992) US data for a variety
of financial, production,
CITY.SAV
database contains a variety of economic, social and demographic variables
for the largest US cities.
STATE.SAV
database contains a variety of economic, social and demographic variables
for the 50 states and the
WORLD95.SAV database containing 1995 population, health, income, education, religion, etc. information for 109 countries. Source is SPSS. COUNTRY.SAV database containing 1992 population, health, income, etc. information for 122 countries. Source is SPSS. NETWORK.SAV database containing size, occupancy, ownership, managed care penetration, etc. data for national sample of 235 hospitals (assembled by Loubeau and Jantzen). GSS93.SAV database containing demographic, income, labor force, family and satisfaction data for national sample of 1500 individuals. Source is the General Social Survey, compiled by SPSS. MBADATA.SAV database containing enrollment, student demographics, faculty characteristics, tuition, accreditation status, etc. for the population of 624 graduate business (MBA) programs in the US. Data were compiled for 1988 and 1995 (by Jantzen). STATBOOK.SAV
database containing hospital financial and service characteristics, as
well as market characteristics, for a random sample of 717 private US hospitals
(assembled by Jantzen and Loubeau).
The publisher of the Levine, Krehbiel and Berenson text maintains a website that offers supplements to the text for student use. You can access the website by going to the following link: http://www.prenhall.com/levine
This course will utilize both Microsoft Excel and the SPSS
program to conduct statistical analysis. Both programs are available
for student use in all Iona computer labs. Students are free to use
other software to complete assignments/exams (like BMDP, MINITAB, etc.),
but this instructor will not offer technical support for such programs.
Students who wish to purchase the Student Version of SPSS software for
their own computers can obtain it (for about $26 new) at http://www.amazon.com
and other websites. Click
here
for information on installing the SPSS: Student Version program.
Instructor:
Robert Jantzen,
Ph.D.
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