Question

Hospitals In a study of births in New York State, data were collected from four hospitals coded as follows: (1) Albany Medical Center; (1438) Bellevue Hospital Center; (66) Olean General Hospital; (413) Strong Memorial Hospital. Does it make sense to calculate the average (mean) of the numbers 1, 1438, 66, and 413?

Short answer

No, the mean of the values is meaningless.

Step-by-step solution

Given information

Data from four hospitals were collected to study births in New York State. These are as follows:

• Albany Medical Center coded as 1
• Bellevue Hospital Center coded as 1438
• Olean General Hospital coded as 66
• Strong Memorial Hospital coded as 413

Application of mean(average) value

Mean is the arithmetic average of the numerical set of values. The value is computed to determine the single value of a dataset that has the highest chances to appear in the dataset.

Refer to step 1; the values are not specified as variable values but rather codes for four different hospitals.

These are specifically serial numbers for hospitals. Calculating the mean of these values would provide a central value of the serial number, which is meaningless.