Introduction
The WHO has been discouraging cigarette smoking for long due to negative health and economic effects brought about by smoking. The organization has been trying to encourage governments from all parts of the world to put in place measures to discourage smoking. Many governments have responded by increasing tobacco tax, educating people on negative impacts of smoking among other ways. All this measures have led to increased price of cigarette. Generally, the price of cigarettes has been increasing over years and this has influenced people decision regarding smoking. This is because increased cigarette prices consume significant proportion of person’s income. This paper tries to research on the relationship between numbers of smokers in western Virginia against per capita income (per capita income = national income divide by the country population) in the state. In addition, it tries to identify whether increase in people living standards brought about by increased per capita has any relationship with citizens smoking habit. It is generally expected that people will consume according to their purchasing power. However, tobacco is a habit forming commodity whose demand may not easily be predicted by the per capita income. All this withstanding it is highly probable that there may be a relationship between number of smokers in the state and per capita income.
Data, graphs and analysis
The report makes use of West Virginia data on per capita income and the estimated number of smokers (both men and women) eighteen years and above from the year 1990 to 1999. Firstly, a scatter plot of men and women is made
Scatter plot one
(This data was obtained from http://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/hsc/briefs/three/ accessed on 7th july, 2012)
When a line of best fit is inserted the following is obtained
It can be suspected that there is a third variable affecting the number of smokers which may be people’s income. Therefore, a scatter can be plotted to see the outcome.
Scatter plot two
(Accessed from http://bber.unm.edu/econ/us-pci.htm)
Likewise, a linear regression can be inserted to obtain a line of best fit and R2 obtained
Conclusion
The linear relationship between male and female smokers created a suspicion of a variable which may be influencing smokers in West Virginia. Thus data was collected of total smokers and per capita income.
It was possible to draw a line of regression in the scatter plot and this indicates that there is a relationship between per capita income and the total numbers of smokers in West Virginia. The equation of the line of best fit is given by Y= 0.094x-16326 where Y represents the per capita income while X represents total smokers.
"Estimated Number of Adult Cigarette Smokers." West Virginia Department of Health & Human Resources Home Page. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 July 2012.
"Per Capita Personal Income U.S. and All States." Bureau of Business and Economic Research UNM. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 July 2012.
