Preparing for Influenza season
Preparing medical staffing for upcoming Influenza season
Background
The United States has an influenza season where more people than usual suffer from the flu. Some people, particularly those in vulnerable populations, develop serious complications and end up in the hospital. Hospitals and clinics need additional staff to adequately treat these extra patients. The medical staffing agency provides this temporary staff.
Objective
As a Data Analyst I will submit a recommendation, present insights to stakeholders in an easily consumable format to the medical agency to determine when to send staff to each state for the flu season of 2017.
Skills
Data cleaning, integration & transformation
Statistical hypothesis testing
Visual analysis
Storytelling in Tableau
Tools
Tableau
Excel
PowerPoint
Data Sets
1. Influenza deaths by geography, time, age, and gender Source: CDC Download Data Set
2. Population data by geography Source: US Census Bureau Download Data Set
3. Counts of influenza laboratory test results by state (survey) Source: CDC (Fluview) Download Influenza Visits Data Set
Steps for Data Analysis:
Visualize the analysis results and create a dashboard.
Step
Description
1
Transform project objectives into relationship between variables.
2
Establish hypotheses and prepare a data checklist for them.
3
Data cleaning and integration.
4
Data analysis.
5
Analysis process
Who is most affected by the Influenza season?
Use Tableau to combine bar charts and pie charts to analyze the number of flu deaths in each state and the proportion of deaths among those aged 65 and over. And we can see People aged 65 and over are the most severely affected by the Influenza.
Where is the flu more severe?
Use different colors and shapes on the map to represent the total population and the number of flu deaths in each state. And we can see the flu in California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois and Ohio is more severe.
Use a scatter plot to reveal a strong positive correlation between the number of deaths and the total population.
When is influenza season?
Combine line charts and bar charts to analyze the temporal trends of influenza. This approach allows us to clearly identify the number of flu deaths each month and the monthly growth rate of flu deaths. From this analysis, we can determine when flu deaths begin to surge, when they peak, and when they start to decline.
By using Tableau's interactive features, we can click on high-risk flu states on the map to view the varying flu trends for each state.
Conclusion
1.The proportion of influenza deaths among the population aged over 65 exceeds 90%, making them the most affected group by influenza.
2.Analysis has found that the population of over 65 and the number of deaths in this age group are strongly correlated. States with a large population of over 65 should be where more medical resources are allocated.
3.Analysis has revealed that influenza is seasonal, with the number of deaths typically beginning to rise in October and reaching a peak in January or March, then starting to decline, with the lowest point in August or September.
Recommendation
Geographic dimension:
Sorting the states by total Influenza deaths of 65+, we have these three priority levels:
1) The first emergency level includes California and New York, which will be given top priority in receiving additional medical staff.
2) The second emergency level includes Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio, which will receive additional medical staff with secondary priority.
3) The third emergency level includes all other states, which will only receive additional medical staff after the needs of the first two levels have been met.
Time dimension
Based on previous analysis, influenza deaths peak in each state at certain times. Therefore, the month before the peak occurs would be the most appropriate time to dispatch medical staff to that state.
Based on the total monthly influenza deaths for each state from 2014 to 2017(the most recent three years), a map has been created showing the month before the peak flu period for each state.
The time to dispatch additional medical staff to the seven high-risk flu states is December.
