UGPH-GU20 Fall 2018 KEY

Lecture 11: Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient

1. Can we tell whether there is an association between PM2.5 and nitrogen oxides?

Participant Gender Race PM2.5 Nitrogen DM

ID oxides
001 1 1 1.4 25 1
002 . 2 2.3 32 0
003 2 2 1.7 12 0
004 2 . 3.3 14 1
005 1 1 2.8 31 1
Too few data, hard to tell.

2. Read the SPSS output, and answer questions below.

Correlations
PM2.5 Nitrogen Proximity Blood FEV1
Oxides to major glucose
roadways
Pearson Correlation 1 .781 .271 .399 -.671
PM2.5 Sig. (2-tailed) .004 .005 .043 .002
N 604 604 603 600 604
Pearson Correlation .781 1 -.499 .574 -.348
Nitrogen Oxides Sig. (2-tailed) .004 .421 .202 .037
N 604 604 603 600 604
Pearson Correlation .271 -.499 1 .269 -.214
Proximity to major
Sig. (2-tailed) .005 .421 .000 .142
roadways
N 603 603 603 599 603
Blood glucose Pearson Correlation .399 .574 .269 1 .314
Sig. (2-tailed) .043 .202 .000 .002
N 600 600 599 600 600
FEV1 Pearson Correlation -.671 -.348 -.214 .314 1
Sig. (2-tailed) .002 .037 .142 .002
N 604 604 603 600 604
FEV1 – forced expiratory volume; the volume of air that can be forcibly exhaled in the first second after a
deep breath (measured in liters)
1) Is there an association between PM2.5 and Nitrogen Oxides? Write this up as you would in a
published manuscript.
H0: ρ = 0 (PM2.5 is NOT associated with Nitrogen Oxides)
PM2.5 is associated with Nitrogen Oxides (r(602) = .781, p = .004).

2) Does blood glucose have a stronger relationship with PM2.5 or Nitrogen Oxides?
r (blood glucose , Nitrogen Oxides) = .574
r (blood glucose , PM2.5) = .399

Blood glucose have a stronger relationship with Nitrogen Oxides.

3) How many degrees of freedom were used to test the association between blood glucose and
proximity to major roadways?
df = n - 2 = 599 – 2 = 597.

4) Is there an association between Nitrogen Oxides and proximity to major roadways? Write this up
as you would in a published manuscript.
Proximity to major roadways is NOT associated with Nitrogen Oxides (r(601) = -.499, p = .421).

5) Assess whether FEV1 is a confounder of the association between PM 2.5 and blood glucose?
Between proximity to major roadways and blood glucose?

r (FEV1 , PM2.5) = -.671

r (FEV1 , blood glucose) = .314
FEV1 is a confounder of the association between PM2.5 and blood glucose because FEV1 has a
strong to moderate association with each of these two variables.