U.S. Medical Insurance Costs - Please tell me what you think about this

This project had many changes from start to finish. At first, I didn’t know very well how to start the analysis, or how to store the data. I decided to create a big dictionary containing all the data, and then applying self made functions to this dict, I got the calculations and outcomes that I wanted to get.

I have been working on it for more or less one month, so any feedback is appreciated!

U.S. Medical Insurance Costs - pablocodelearner

First, it’s clear you put a lot of time & effort into this. Congrats on finishing the project.
I really like that you clearly explained your intentions for the project before delving into the data. You explain everything in detail so even people who might not be familiar with the data or project can easily understand what you’re doing. This is key skill for DAs-- knowing your audience & how to convey findings is important (related: how to convey technical concepts to a non-technical audience).

Other random thoughts:

  • I like that you have resources listed at the end of the analysis. I think this is the first project that I’ve looked at that has included it. (minus my own).

  • In the section where you discuss BMI, I’m happy to see that part included. I would add (to the discussion, not your project) that it’s a controversial number that isn’t an accurate measure of one’s health (like you stated). It doesn’t take into account an individual’s age, gender, race, muscle & bone mass, body composition, genetics, or medical history. It’s a topic of discussion amongst RDs. It is a number that insurance companies use to charge higher rates. There has been much written about the inaccuracy of the number.

  • I like that you explain your thought processes as you go through the data & when writing out functions, etc. It would be helpful to see the output of the functions so one can gain an understanding of & see what’s in the data set. You have a Conclusions section but not an output of the previous code cells/sections.

If you’re curious, there’s a lot written on insurance costs in the US. Some further reading…this is an interesting report.

This is a data set that you will return to on this DS path and will be able to do more with it when you learn other Python modules like Pandas, Seaborn, etc.

Good work! :partying_face:

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Thank you so much for your great and detailed review! I really appreciate it!

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I updated the project. I’ve fixed some format problems in the markdown cells, and also add the output of the dictionaries created with the functions, from where I drew my conclusions (the user lisalisaj pointed at this and I thought that was important).

U.S. Medical Insurance Costs - pablocodelearner

Cool. However, I don’t think it’s a good idea to show the entire dictionary for the ages column. It’s kind of just for your use, so you can see how it displays for your analysis.
I was more referring to the output from your functions when answering a question like, ‘what’s the mean age in the SE region?’, etc.