2. The Google Public Data Explorer is a tool that indexes information from the web and visualizes through a series of graphs making it easily accessible. I chose to compare female life expectancy with the crude death rate in countries around the world. I had to look up the term “crude death rate” before I was able to understand what the data meant as I hadn’t heard the term and it is essentially the total number of deaths to residents in a specified geographic area divided by the total population for the same geographic area. Unsurprisingly, these two variables seemed to be inversely related. If women are living longer it would make sense that the overall death rate would be less. Area’s with particularly low female life expectancy and high crude death rates seemed to be located mostly in Africa while higher female life expectancies and lower crude death rates seemed to be mostly in Asia, Europe, and North America. The earlier the year the more profound the relationship between the two variables is with the modern day showing a less server correlation.

4.

Link to government study on Prejudice, Social Stress, and Mental Health in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Populations: Conceptual Issues and Research Evidence 

The article I looked at was a study on LGB (lesbians, gays, and bisexuals) and mental health, social stress, and prejudice. The author of the article hypothesized that LGBs experience a higher prevalence of mental illness. The author cited many scientific studies to support her argument: one of which was The prevalence, distribution, and mental health correlates of perceived discrimination in the United States. This study was a survey that included only gay men in the United States, which hosts a few problems in terms of limiting the sample. The social climate of the United States is incredibly different from other modern countries and therefore may subject gay men to an experience that is influenced by their geographic location. Furthermore, surveys are not the most reliable means of gathering information as self-reports can be influenced by a whole host of factors including how the questions are asked, what mood the respondent is in at the time and the way in which the survey is presented to the respondent. However, in this case, I do believe that a survey is the most accurate way to get at least an idea of the gay man’s experience in America today. It would be more scientifically sound to base research off of police discrimination statistics, however, many cases of LGB discrimination go unreported and some states even legally allow LGB discrimination, meaning there are no police records of discrimination reports making the objective data very limited.