Question

According to the WHO report, girls who are one month old have a mean head circumference of 36.6 centimeters with a standard deviation of 1.2 centimeters. As with most body measurements, head circumference has a normal probability distribution. Medscape defines microcephaly (small head syndrome) as a head circumference that is more than two standard deviations below the mean. What is the probability that a one-month old girl will be categorized as having microcephaly

Answer 1

0.0228 = 2.28% probability that a one-month old girl will be categorized as having microcephaly

Explanation:

Normal Probability Distribution

Problems of normal distributions can be solved using the z-score formula.

In a set with mean
`\mu` and standard deviation
`\sigma`, the z-score of a measure X is given by:

`Z = (X - \mu)/(\sigma)`

The Z-score measures how many standard deviations the measure is from the mean. After finding the Z-score, we look at the z-score table and find the p-value associated with this z-score. This p-value is the probability that the value of the measure is smaller than X, that is, the percentile of X. Subtracting 1 by the p-value, we get the probability that the value of the measure is greater than X.

Medscape defines microcephaly (small head syndrome) as a head circumference that is more than two standard deviations below the mean. What is the probability that a one-month old girl will be categorized as having microcephaly?

Probability of a z-score of -2 or less, which is the p-value of Z = -2.

Looking at the z-table, Z = -2 has a p-value of 0.0228.

0.0228 = 2.28% probability that a one-month old girl will be categorized as having microcephaly