Research project

Jenny Powers
BSc, AssocDipApplSc(Comp), MMedStats

 

Masters Thesis: Stability of groups of correlated variables identified by exploratory factor and cluster analysis
Supervisor: Professor Annette Dobson
University: Research Centre for Gender and Health, University of Newcastle, Australia

Objective: To determine which of the variables in a large health survey of women are correlated with each other so that problems of multicollinearity can be avoided in future analyses.

Methods: Cross-sectional data were obtained from the baseline survey of 14,100 women (aged 45-50 years) enrolled in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health. Five different analytical techniques (factor analyses with varimax and promax rotation and cluster analyses with single, complete and density linkages) were used on three samples of these women. The resulting factors and clusters were used to define common groups of correlated variables.

Results: The 18 common groups of variables, consisting of 122 items, fell into five broad categories - perceived physical and mental health, health service use, gynaecological health, lifestyle and demographics. The results obtained using split samples and different analytical methods suggest that these groups of correlated variables are stable.

Conclusions and Implications: In studies such as this, where large number of variables are collected, a combination of factor analysis and cluster analysis can be used to identify stable groups of correlated variables. These groups may be used to create composite variables, such as factor scores or summated scores, or to identify one variable representative of the group. The new variables can then be used in future analyses so that the problems of multicollinearity can be avoided. The identified correlated variables may also be used to reduce both redundancy and the number of missing values.

To Contact jenny:
Jenny Powers
Womens Health Australia
Research Centre for Gender Health and Ageing
University of Newcastle
University drive
Callaghan NSW 2308
Australia

Email: Jenny.powers@newcastle.edu.au


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Women's Health Australia homepage about the Women's Health Australia project Women's Health Australia staff Women's Health Australia current events Women's Health Australia surveys and data Women's Health Australia substudies information for Women's Health Australia participants University of Newcastle contact Women's Health Australia Women's Health Australia publications and presentations Women's Health Australia homepage about the Women's Health Australia project Women's Health Australia staff Women's Health Australia current events Women's Health Australia surveys and data Women's Health Australia substudies information for Women's Health Australia participants University of Newcastle contact Women's Health Australia Women's Health Australia publications and presentations


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Last updated: 16 July 2004 by Timothy Neve © Copyright