PROJECT REPORT

P O I SS O N D I S T R I B U T I O N

STUDENT NAME
SAQIB ASLAM GANATRA 3881

ROOM NUMBER
Background
For the last 3 months I have been studying and researching on statistics
subject. In this course Statistics and inference I want to do something
different about Poisson distribution, but collecting information is very
difficult and time consuming in the statistics aspects so I decided to do
work in team to share each other ideas.

Acknowledgement
My project is based on “Poisson Distribution” is mainly concerned with
collecting real life example data. All this has been possible for the
generous effort of Sir Shebaz khan (Karachi institute of Economic &
Technology) who teaches the course Statistics and inference. My
heartiest thanks go to Sir Shebaz khan under whose guidance the
entire project was being conducted.

History
The Poisson distribution was developed by the French mathematician
Simeon Denis Poisson in 1837. Poisson’s father originally wanted him to
become a doctor. After a brief apprenticeship with an uncle, Poisson
realized he did not want to be a doctor Poisson went to the École
Centrale and later the École Polytechnique in Paris, where he excelled in
mathematics, despite having much less formal education than his peers.
Poisson impressed his teachers Laplace and Lagrange with his abilities.
Unfortunately, the École Polytechnique specialized in geometry, and
Poisson could not draw diagrams well. However, his final paper on the
theory of equations was so good he was allowed to graduate without
taking the final examination. After graduating, Poisson received his first
teaching position at the École Polytechnique in Paris, which rarely
happened. Poisson did most of his work on ordinary and partial
differential equations. He also worked on problems involving physical
topics, such as pendulums and sound

Applications
• The number of deaths by horse kicking in the Prussian army (first application)
• birth defects and genetic mutations
 • rare diseases (like Leukemia, but not AIDS because it is infectious and so not
independent) - especially in legal cases
• car accidents

• traffic flow and ideal gap distance

• number of typing errors on a page
• hairs found in McDonald's hamburgers
• spread of an endangered animal in Africa
• failure of a machine in one month
The probability distribution of a Poisson random variable X representing the
number of successes occurring in a given time interval or a specified region of space is
given by the formula:

Where x = 0, 1, 2, 3... , e = 2.71828 (but use your calculator's e button)

μ = mean number of successes in the given time interval or region of space
Mean and Variance of Poisson Distribution
If μ is the average number of successes occurring in a given time interval or region in the
Poisson distribution, then the mean and the variance of the Poisson distribution are both
equal to μ.
E(X) = μ and V(X) = σ2 = μ
Note: In a Poisson distribution, only one parameter, μ is needed to determine the
probability of an event.
REAL LIFE EXAMPLES IN MEDICAL STATISTICS
1. Here’s an example where the Poisson distribution was used in a maternity
hospital to work out how many births would be expected during the night.

The hospital had 3000 deliveries each year, so if these happened randomly around
the clock 1000 deliveries would be expected between the hours of midnight and
8.00 a.m. This is the time when many staff are off duty and it is important to
ensure that there will be enough people to cope with the workload on any
particular night.

The average number of deliveries per night is 1000/365, which is 2.74. From this
average rate the probability of delivering 0,1,2, etc babies each night can be
calculated using the Poisson distribution. Some probabilities are:

P(0) 2.740 e-2.74 / 0! = 0.065

P(1) 2.741 e-2.74 / 1! = 0.177

P(2) 2.742 e-2.74 / 2! = 0.242

P(3) 2.743 e-2.74 / 3! = 0.221

(i) On how many days in the year would 5 or more deliveries be expected? (Ans.
52)

(ii) Over the course of one year, what is the greatest number of deliveries expected
in any night? (Ans. 8)

(iii) Why might the pattern of deliveries not follow a Poisson distribution?

(Ans. If deliveries were not random throughout the 24 hours; e.g. if a lot of women
had elective caesareans done during the day).

Note: In this real life example, deliveries in fact followed the Poisson distribution
very closely, and the hospital was able to predict the workload accurately.

2. Just as you have to take your car for an annual MOT test, many doctors believe
it is important for people above a certain age to have an annual check-up. Some
general practitioners (GPs) in Luton, Bedfordshire, decided to send letters to all
their patients aged 35 to 64 years, inviting them to attend a health check at the
practice.

Of the 2678 patients who received invitations, 2205 attended the health check and
473 did not. Some characteristics of attenders and non-attenders are shown in the
table.

Attend Did not Total Non-

ed attend attenda
nce rate
(%)

Male 987 262 1249 21.0

Female 1218 211 1429 14.8

Age group (yr):

35-44 812 189 1001 18.9

45-54 732 143 875 16.3

55-64 661 141 802 17.6

Smoker 622 208 830 25.1

Non-smoker 1583 265 1848 14.3

Obese 193 61 254 24.0

Not obese 1977 399 2376 16.8

Diet score:

1 (best) 623 88 711 12.4

2 533 94 627 15.0

3 555 132 687 19.2

4 (worst) 460 151 611 24.7

(i) How would you test whether the difference in attendance rates between
different categories of patients was statistically significant?

(Ans. Use the chi-squared test).

(ii) Which of the differences in the table is statistically significant?

(Ans. All significant (p<0.001) except age).

(iii) How should the doctors interpret these results?

(Ans. In general men, smokers, people who are very overweight, and those with
poor diets will be less likely to accept an invitation to a health check than other
patients).

(iv) How do you think this information was useful to the doctors?

(Ans. This study provided evidence that the patients who are less likely to attend a
health check are exactly the ones who need the most health care and advice. The
doctors realized that it was not enough simply to send invitations to attend a
health check, but that they needed to think of more effective ways of reaching
patients and encouraging them to take care of their health.)