Computational and Mathematical Methods in Medicine
Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 597845, 8 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/597845
Research Article
The Prevalence of Asthma and Declared Asthma in Poland on the Basis of ECAP Survey Using Correspondence Analysis
1Department of Environmental Hazards Prevention and Allergology, Medical University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
2Department of Applied Mathematics, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
3Department of Econometrics and Statistics, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Warsaw, Poland
4Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
5Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
Received 28 September 2012; Revised 26 November 2012; Accepted 27 November 2012
Academic Editor: Facundo Ballester
Copyright © 2013 M. Zalewska et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Results of epidemiological and public health surveys are often presented in the form of cross-classification tables. It is sometimes difficult to analyze data described in this way and to understand relations between variables. Graphical methods such as correspondence analysis are more convenient and useful. Our paper describes an application of correspondence analysis to epidemiological research. We apply the basic concepts of correspondence analysis like profiles, chi-square distance to medical data concerning prevalence of asthma. We aim at describing the relationship between asthma, region, and age. The data presented in this paper come from Epidemiology of Allergy in Poland (ECAP) survey in years 2006–2008. Correspondence analysis shows that there is a fundamental difference in the structure of age groups for people with symptoms compared to those who have declared asthma (regardless of the level of symptoms of asthma and the level of declaration). The variable which best differentiates declared asthma in all regions is “wheezing and whistling.” Correspondence analysis also shows significant differences between locations. Our analyses are performed in the R package “ca”.