Lack of correlation between COVID-19 death rates and high school completion percentages

Introduction: COVID-19 mortality rates vary widely and, while there are numerous theories as to the causes of these disparities, definitive answers remain elusive. Objectives: The objective of this project is to determine whether there is a relationship between COVID-19 mortality rates and levels of educational attainment. The datasets include COVID-19 mortality information from 2020 and 2021 at the state level and include 12-year schooling information (High School). Methods: This project makes use of Tableau Public (2021.4) to create a scatter plot representation of levels of educational attainment by state and COVID-19 mortality rates by state. A descriptive analysis determines whether there is a relationship between the two elements. Results: There is no relationship, positive or negative, between the two variables (COVID-19 death rates and High School completion percentages, both at the state level). Conclusions: There is no correlation between the percentage of High School drop outs and COVID-19 mortality rates at the state level according to the datasets analyzed. Nonetheless, this warrants further exploration, as the present study was limited in its scope.研究背景：新冠病毒病（COVID-19）的死亡率差异悬殊，尽管学界已提出诸多理论以解释此类差异的成因，但目前仍缺乏确凿定论。研究目标：本项目旨在探究新冠病毒病死亡率与教育水平之间是否存在关联。本项目所用数据集涵盖2020至2021年州级别的新冠病毒病死亡率数据，以及各州12年制高中（High School）阶段的受教育情况数据。研究方法：本项目使用Tableau Public（2021.4版本）绘制散点图，分别呈现各州教育水平与新冠病毒病死亡率的分布特征，并通过描述性分析检验二者之间是否存在关联。研究结果：两类变量（州级新冠病毒病死亡率与高中完成率）之间不存在任何正向或负向相关关系。研究结论：基于本次分析的数据集，州级层面高中辍学率与新冠病毒病死亡率之间不存在相关性。尽管如此，本研究受限于研究范围，因此有待开展进一步的探索性研究。