Two weeks ago I looked at Chlamydia and mortality rates from all causes in Cambria and Somerset County zip codes. This week I thought I would take a look at how chlamydia rates are correlated with social ailments in the county zip codes. The first variable I looked with Chlamydia rates Mortality from drug use rates from the HRSA dataset.
Chlamydia and Drug Mortality
The graph above shows a moderately strong positive correlation between drug mortality rates (either from prescription or illegal drugs). This means that as drug death rates increase, chlamydia rates also tend to increase. There are some outliers such as zip code 16601. This relationship accounts for 54.5% of the variability in chlamydia rates. If the relationship accounted for 100% of the variability with no outliers, the plot would look like the graph below.
Chlamydia and Violent Crime
There is also a moderately strong positive correlation between chlamydia rates and violent crime rates. Except for the zip codes 15753, 16627, 16680 and 16681, the violent crime rates increased as the chlamydia rate increased. The other 4 zip codes had high crime rates and low chlamydia rates. These zip codes are located in Northern Cambria and northwest Blair Counties. This correlation accounts for 47.1% of the variability.
Chlamydia and Preterm Births
There is a mild correlation between chlamydia rates and preterm birth rates at the zip code level. This relationship accounts for only 26.3% of the variability according to the r2 statistic. We can see that there is a lot more spread around the best fit straight line for the preterm births graph than for the first 2 graphs.
Chlamydia and the Lack of a High School Diploma
There was essentially no correlation between chlamydia rates and the percent of a zip code without a high school diploma. Although the graph shows a slight negative correlation between the two variables, it only accounts for 1.9% of the variability. The slight negative correlation is due to the 15546 and 15953 zip codes. The 15546 is where Jenners, PA is located while 15953 zip code is where Seanor is located. They have high high school dropout rates but low chlamydia rates.
That chlamydia rates are correlated with ailments show a fairly strong association between the variables. One should not assume that there is a cause and effect relationship between the variables. This means that these ailments are more likely to be found together. Interventions for drug mortality should also focus on areas with high chlamydia and preterm rates.