) Use the linear regression model to predict the death rate due to heart disease if 5% of people smoke cigarettes

Question

) Use the linear regression model to predict the death rate due to heart disease if 5% of people smoke cigarettes

14.08p-53.87 is the equation I got

Answer 1

Maybe it's y = 14.08p-53.87, where y = death rate and p = percentage of people who smoke cigarettes.  Hard to tell without more info.  But, progressing from this assumption,  we can plug in 5 in place of p, and get a result

 

14.08(5)-53.87 = 16.53, where 16.53 is the death rate (which doesn't tell us anything without the right units).  Can't use the decimal equivalent of 5%, since using 0.05 in place of p results in an expected death rate less than 0 (hello zombies!) 

 

The negative coefficient (-53.87) seems odd...there is death due to heart disease even in communities of non-smokers (y-intercept, where p=0).  Either no data exists for communities with extremely low percentages of smokers, or there is a positive curvature to the data set which drives the y-intercept for a linear approximation below 0. 

 

Hope this helps!