Statistics for Public Health: Survey on Healthcare Service Preferences

This assignment focuses on the application of statistical methods in public health, specifically analyzing data collected from a telephonic survey. The survey aims to understand community preferences and opinions regarding healthcare services provided by local health centers. The student employs simple random sampling to select participants and utilizes a detailed questionnaire covering demographics, healthcare usage, satisfaction levels, and factors affecting access to care. The assignment discusses the advantages and disadvantages of the sampling method, highlighting its simplicity and potential for bias. The questionnaire explores various aspects of healthcare services, including financial issues, personnel, drug availability, and equipment, and seeks suggestions for improvement. The analysis is supported by relevant academic references, providing a comprehensive overview of the research process and its implications for public health management and service delivery.

Running Head: STATISTICS FOR PUBLIC HEALTH
Statistics for Public Health
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Nowadays, a lot of developed health centres are developing in different localities. These
health centres are developed in order to help the people around that community to get emergency
health services in the time of need without travelling large distances to attend hospitals.
Every people in a community need medical attention. Among them, some prefer to visit
the local health centres and some others do not prefer visiting the health centres. To differentiate
between these preferences, this telephonic survey has been conducted. One particular health
centre will be chosen and the people residing the catchment of that health care centre will be the
targeted population. A sample of 50 people from that locality will be selected at random and they
will be called up and asked about opinions on their demographic profile as well as about their
opinions on the health care services provided by the centres (Kadilar & Cekim, 2017).
There are certain advantages and disadvantages of selecting the participants using this
method. Among the advantages of simple random sampling, this is one of the simplest
techniques of sampling. Sampling can be conducted with very little information about the
population. The samples collected using this technique are generally free from classification
errors and bias. It can represent the whole population. The errors in sampling can also be
assessed very easily (Rao, 2015). On the other hand, there are certain disadvantages to this
technique as well. This technique will be successfully representing the whole population only if
the population is not homogeneous and the units or the items of the study are not widely spread
(Montgomery, 2017). Suppose, in this case, the whole community must have a similar type of
response so that selecting any person from the community will help to represent the whole
population. It is not possible in reality to have a population which is completely catalogued
(Denscombe, 2014). Thus, the problem arises to apply simple random sampling.
The questionnaire that is used to conduct the telephonic survey is attached below:

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Questionnaire
1. Age group of the respondents:
 0 – 14
 15 – 24
 25 – 44
 45 – 64
 65 and above
2. Gender of the respondents:
 Male
 Female
 Others
3. What is the family size of the household?
 2
 3
 4
 5 or more
4. What is the monthly family income?
 $2,000 – $4,000
 $4,000 – $6,000
 $6,000 – $8,000
 $8,000 – $10,000
 $10,000 and over
5. Educational Qualification:

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 Year 12 or equivalent
 Bachelor Degree
 Post Graduate
 Doctorate
 Others (Please Specify)
6. Do you use the healthcare services provided by the health care centres near the
community?
 Yes
 No
7. The healthcare services provided by the centres meets the necessary health interventions
 Strongly Agree
 Agree
 Neutral
 Disagree
 Strongly Disagree
8. What factors prevent the whole community to receive the health services that are required
immediately?
 Financial Problems
 Non-Availability of trained personnel
 Shortage of Drugs
 Shortage of equipment
 Others (Please Specify)
9. What are the specific health services that are provided to the people in the community?

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10. What are the sections in which improvement is necessary? (Please share your point of
view).

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References
Denscombe, M. (2014). The good research guide: for small-scale social research projects.
McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Kadilar, C., & Cekim, H. O. (2017, July). Hartley-Ross type variance estimators in simple
random sampling. In AIP Conference Proceedings (Vol. 1863, No. 1, p. 560008). AIP
Publishing.
Montgomery, D. C. (2017). Design and analysis of experiments. John wiley & sons.
Rao, J. N. (2015). Small
‐Area Estimation. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.