For this class, my partner and I had the opportunity to choose a topic we wanted to research and analyze each data set. The question we wanted answered was, "How Have Cancer Rates Changed over a Five Year Period?". Through the course of this final project, we chose to research different types of cancer over a five year span with finances having a major effect on the data. We were also curious to see and compare whether the rate of death would increase or decrease depending on the cost of different cancer treatments, as well as the mortality rates within different states.
To complete the analysis, we were tasked with using R-Studio to load and compare both data sets we had gathered. Throughout the entirety of this project, we used different packages within R-Studio such as tidyverse, esquisse, mosaicData, and dcData to properly examine and tidy the data. We also used the 'ggplot', 'group_by', and 'summarise' function to properly examine and make assumptions about the linear relationships between the different years and average costs per year per state.
After sorting and evaluating the data the average death rate for cancer patients had decreased from 2015 to 2020. Specifically, while looking at the transformation of the rate_year, the average rate per year from 2015 decreased by 3%. When analyzing the United States map per state, the states with the highest mortality rate in 2015 were Oklahoma, Mississippi and Kentucky. In 2020, those same states plus West Virginia had the highest mortality rate at exceeding 170,000 deaths. For the states Maine, Virginia, and North Carolina the mortality rates decreased from 2015 to 2020, dropping approximately 10,000 to 30,000 deaths over the five year span.
Another conclusion that can be made from the data is that with an increase in the effective cost of cancer treatment, there showed a decrease in mortality rate. Using different ggplots that created these findings, the graph shows the coordination between the average cost of cancer treatments in US dollars and each year, while the color depicts the average death rate per 100,000 deaths. In 2015, the average death rate with approximately $153,000 in cancer treatment costs was greater than 160,000. With a comparison in 2020, the average death rate with a treatment cost of $163,000 was less than 148,000. The overall assumption that can be made from these findings is there was a decrease in the amount of (rate) deaths per dollars raised for cancer treatment.
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