Picture of my House, Located in Zip Code 63115 and my Red Chevy Cavalier

Correlation simply means to measure the strength of a correlation between two factors. In this study, I used various sources to gather information for factors to correlate with the AIDS rate in my hometown. I focused on race, gender, income, education, crime and STDs. After I correlated various factors such as percentage of black males or crime rate, I created correlation scatter XY plots which showed the direction, positive or negative, of the correlation. Also, I had to determine the statistical significance by finding the correlation coefficient and the confidence interval using the degrees of freedom and the significant values table. I had a total of 45 zip codes and using the formula, degrees of freedom = n – 2, I determined my degree of freedom which was 43. To obtain statistical significance, I had to meet the following:

For example, for a 99% confidence interval with a p value of 0.001, I had to have a correlation coefficient of 0.393.

90% à0.257 à p value: p=.01

95% à 0.304 à p value: p = .025

97.5% à 0.345 à p value: p = 0.005

99% à 0.393 à p value: p = 0.001

I met a 99% confidence interval in most of my correlations. Overall, I will be studying the area of St. Louis, Missouri and then specifically the area of St. Louis City in which the city defines as being within the city limit. For the entire St. Louis Area, the average AIDS Rate is 506, the total population for the area is 972,436 and the total number of cumulative AIDS cases is 3,997.  

Overall, the factors with the highest positive correlations are property crime rate, violent crime rate, Chlamydia, median income, race, and education primarily for black males and black females. These factors are not “caused” by AIDS but are just associated with AIDS. I looked at my data from my previous study and I think that the St. Louis Area has a rate of 506 mainly because of the impoverished, uneducated black community, which also has high AIDS rates and very high crime rates. In essence, we need to handle this problem in St. Louis by analyzing the issues and finding ways to solve them, and I have identified the factors that contribute greatly. With this knowledge, we can find ways to address the issue of AIDS in the St. Louis community.