TITLE:
Power Law for the Rates of Different Numbers of Chronic Diseases among Elderly Chinese People
AUTHORS:
Handong Li, Ping Gao
KEYWORDS:
Chronic Disease, Power Law Distribution, Elderly People, Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test (K-S Test), Paired T-Test
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Statistics,
Vol.6 No.6,
December
27,
2016
ABSTRACT: Chronic disease is an important factor that
affect the health of elderly people. We analyzed the 2006 and 2010 data from
the Chinese Urban and Rural Elderly Population Surveys, which are nationally
representative surveys of elderly people aged 60 years and above. We found that
there existed a typical power-law distribution for the rates of different
numbers of chronic diseases among elderly Chinese people. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov
test indicated that the result was robust, and the power exponents were
approximately ?2.5. In addition, a paired t-test was conducted, which
demonstrated that the rates of different numbers of chronic diseases did not
have significant urban-rural differences, time differences or gender
differences.