Median Household Income

According to the Maine CDC’s “State of Maine 2004-2005 Epidemiological Profile,” as of 1999, 10.9% of the state’s residents were living below the poverty line, a figure that is lower than the national average of 12.4%.  In Maine, the poverty line is defined as $16,079 for a family of three and $20,615 for a family of four (11).  Along these same lines, Maine’s median household income of $37,240 also falls below the national median household income of $41,994 (7).  Since poverty has been found to relate to IV drug use and a number of other factors contributing to a higher risk of acquiring HIV, it was hypothesized that  median household income (from SF3 of the 2000 U.S. Census; sample data) would be positively correlated with AIDS rates in select cities and towns in Maine. 

However, as shown in both the table and the scatter plot below, the results of the correlation were not consistent with the above hypothesis.  In order to be considered significant at an α-level of .05, with 15 degrees of freedom (df = n-2), r must be greater than .482 (see correlation table 1).  Thus, with an r-value of .14, median household income was far from being significantly correlated with AIDS rates, suggesting that these two variables are not related in Maine.  This lack of a correlation between these two variables may be due to the fact that median household incomes in Maine are fairly homogenous, ranging from approximately $28,000 in Waterville to approximately $56,000 in York.  Additionally, as of 2004, 55% of individuals living with diagnosed HIV/AIDS in Maine contracted the disease through MSM, while only 15% were infected through IDU (see correlation table 2), suggesting that factors commonly associated with poverty (such as IV drug use) may not play as large of a role in the Maine AIDS epidemic as elsewhere in the nation.