Create heat maps for ambulatory, hospital, nursing home, and prescription expenses. Compare these heat maps and write a paragraph noting similarities, differences, and interesting or unusual patterns.

Prepare a single presentation slide that summarizes national smoking-related health care costs by selecting among the heat maps created in Problem 1. Enrich your map(s) using the Annotate tool to add context. Add an appropriate amount of narrative to the slide with the goal of demonstrating the economic impact of smoking.

The file CA_Counties.xlsx contains smoking-related information for the state of California by county. Create a heat map for the state of California for the Direct Costs. Which map, the national or state map, would you recommend to use for the smoking cessation class? Explain your reasoning.

The CDC (and other organizations that report health care information) frequently use estimation methods to obtain macro-level data such as the state-wide smoking-related health care costs used in this case. Why is this done? Why is it important for an analyst to understand the estimation method associated with such as data set?