Sir's blog

I visited the MassChip website that gives health information about different cities and towns in Massachusetts. Some of the data collected seem to be self report data while others seem to be from hospital records of time spent and procedures. I chose to focus on the level of current smokers in Massachusetts. In particular, I focused on the cities of Ware and the city of Boston and compared them to each other as well as Massachusetts as a whole.

 The information is broken down to many categories for statistical analysis. Some things are sex, income level, age and race. For this assignment, I have chosen to focus on the health disparities between races living within the same community and the disparity in health from city to city.

I thought this was interesting because Ware is primarily white while Boston has alot of blacks and hispanics. Since they are both in Massachusetts, which has pretty good medical system, one would assume that there will be no differences in health from race to race or from city to city. Here, we look at the smoking rates for White non Hispanics, Black non Hispanics and Hispanics in general…. I guess.

Found on http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/researcher/community-health/masschip/topics/smoking.html

Copyright &copy1995-2010 Massachusetts Department of Public Health – All Rights Reserved, Printed: 12/6/2010, 15:35:29

Looking at the data, it seems that Ware has less of a rate of white smokers per 100,000 people than Boston proper and Massachusetts as a whole. When comparing Boston to  the State of Massachusetts as a whole, the confidence intervals show us that the rate of white non hispanic smokers in Boston is statistically similar to the rate of white non-hispanic smokers in the State as a whole.

This also seems to be the case when you compare the rate of Black non hispanic smokers in Boston to the rate of Black non-hispanic smokers in the State as a whole. The confidence intervals here show us that there is no significant statistical difference between the rates.

It should also be noted that Blacks reported to have a higher rate of smoking in both Boston and the State of Massachusetts than the Whites. However the confidence intervals show us that this rate and disparity at the State level may be non existent since the intervals are nearly in the same range.

Although not enough diversity in Ware.  there is no significant statistical difference between the smoking rates for Hispanics in Boston and Hispanics in Massachusetts as a whole. However, it should be noted that the rate of Hispanic smokers in Boston and Massachusetts as a whole is larger than the Whites in Ware. The same goes for Blacks in Boston and in the State, they too have a higher rate than the Whites in Ware. Meaning out of these groups and cartegories, white non hispanic people are the least likely to smoke cigarettes.  However, the Hispanics have a lower rate than Blacks in both Boston and in the State as a whole.

This means blacks , no matter where they live in the state of Massachusetts, are more likely to smoke cigarettes than whites or hispanics. Again, there is no significant difference between the rates of blacks in Boston and Massachusetts as a whole and there is no diversity in Ware. a white person in Boston is more likely to smoke than a Hispanic person in Boston and a white person in Ware. However that person is less likely to smoke than a Hispanic in a city or town other than Boston in the state of Massachusetts. Even though the difference is slight, if we assume that their is no scientific difference between races, why are some more suceptible to put a toxic substance in their bodies?

The answer my friend….is blowing in the wind. No, seriously, it just may be that simple. We can agree with it or not but people smoking cigarettes on the street corner is advertisement. Perhaps places where there is more population density, smoking is seen more as a symbol of cool. It can’t have much to do with income, seeing as blacks, who are more likely to be of lower income, have the highest rate of smokers yet they don’t have the highest average household median income as your favorite blogger pointed out last post.

But it actually could have to do with income too. I say this because perhaps the one thing that prevents people from smoking cigarettes no matter what race or location is education level. And I think that is this case because as I have seen in my research, as income level goes up, rate of smoking goes down. Income is also equated to having more education because of the social structures put in place.  I used the data from the city of |Boston, a diverse city compared to Ware. Another factor clealrly can be stress. Stress level can also be affected by income.

 Found on http://www.mass.gov/eohhs/researcher/community-health/masschip/topics/smoking.html

Copyright &copy1995-2010 Massachusetts Department of Public Health – All Rights Reserved, Printed: 12/6/2010, 15:35:29