Question 15.15

15.15 Wine and heart disease. Drinking moderate amounts of wine may help prevent heart attacks. Let’s look at data for entire nations. Table 15.1 gives data on yearly wine consumption (liters of alcohol from drinking wine, per person) and yearly deaths from heart disease (deaths per 100,000 people) in 19 developed countries in 2001.

  1. (a) Make a scatterplot that shows how national wine consumption helps explain heart disease death rates.

  2. (b) Describe in words the direction, form, and strength of the relationship.

  3. (c) The correlation for these variables is . Why does this value agree with your description in part (b)?

Table : TABLE 15.1 Wine consumption and heart disease
Country Alcohol
from winea 		Heart disease
death rateb 		Country Alcohol
from winea 		Heart disease
death rateb
Australia 3.25 80 Italy 7.50 60
Austria 4.75 100 Netherlands 2.75 70
Belgium 2.75 60 New Zealand 2.50 100
Canada 1.50 80 Norway 1.75 80
Denmark 4.50 90 Spain 5.00 50
Finland 3.00 120 Sweden 2.50 90
France 8.50 40 Switzerland 6.00 70
Germany 3.75 90 United Kingdom 2.75 120
Iceland 1.25 110 United States 1.25 120
Ireland 2.00 130
aLiters of alcohol from drinking wine, per person.
bDeaths per 100,000 people, ischemic heart disease.