Introduction

Project forecasting refers to the technique that a country or an organization uses to determine the future performance that will help them make decisions of whether to continue with the project at hand or create a new one. The forecast will entail the analysis of the historical data and the use of patterns to extrapolate the future trends. A reliable forecasting is an essential component as far as project planning, risk management and project control are concerned. For this particular case, the project is based on assessing and forecasting the rate of live births per 1,000 population in the United States. The forecast will be useful to the health care sectors since it will guide them with appropriate plans or strategies to reduce the uncertainty of the future events.

The paper will provide an analysis of the strategies the healthcare sectors have employed in the last three years to curb the rising rate of births in the United States. Also, it includes the factors that have contributed to the changes in the number of live births based on the events that occurred regardless of the place of residence. Lastly, this paper provides a detailed explanation about the future government plans on the healthcare sector. The United States has a large population of approximately 323.5 million people, and this high population is because of some changes in the healthcare sector. Although the fertility of the women contributes a significant amount to the rising population, deaths and infant deaths are rising at an alarming rate (National Center for Health Statistics n.d). Therefore, this project will assess the current statistical data on the rates of live births per 1,000 population for the years 2013 and 2014 and provide a forecast for the future based on the historical data.

Problem Statement

The project uses national data from the National Center for Health Statistics, and it encompasses the rate of live births per 1,000 population for the periods between 2013 and 2014. The health care sector needs a reliable and consistent forecasting method. The current methods employed are deterministic and inconsistent in application and assumption; therefore, they are unreliable. The project uses the winter method to forecast for the future trend and it will address the problem that include determining the government strategies for the last three years, factors that might have contributed to the changes in the rate of live births and the future government plans for the healthcare sectors.

Data

The data used for this project are from the secondary source that includes official statistics from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). The project includes data for events occurring within the United States. Precisely, the data on births are based on a combination of registered events provided by the health care facilities in the United States. Each reporting area provided their data to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) for processing. The number of periods the data are based on is two years and are all recorded on a monthly basis. Starting from January 2013 to December 2014, we have fluctuating records on the rates of births.

The organization collected this data to try to understand the trend and the factor behind the changes in the data (National Center for Health Statistics n.d). The National Center for Health Statistics uses the National Vital Statistics Reports to issue provisional data on births in the healthcare facilities. The organization collected the data through survey whereby it interviewed the healthcare officials and women who were currently married or had been married and were aged between 15 and 44 years. The data collected by the organization did not consider the residence of the respondents. The data for this project is attached on the excel sheet.

Forecasting Method

A time series analysis entails a sequence of measurements and based on the data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics from 2013 to 2014, the best fitting forecasting method is winters method. The technique will be helpful in getting an overall idea on the trend in the given data set (Lawrence, Ronald and Sheila 210). For this case, our time series that we will dwell on is the monthly number of births at hospital. We shall use the winters’ method as a reliable forecasting method to determine the future values so that the healthcare sectors can have an opportunity to improve their plans for the future or prepare for the inevitable. This project is concerned with forecasting the future trends in the rates of live births in the United States.

The Government Strategies for the Last Three Years

In the last three years, the government through the healthcare sectors has put in place strategies to control the rising birth rates in the United States. First, the healthcare sector introduced the family planning method. The introduction of the birth control pills has ensured that families maintain a reasonable number of children. The strategy helps women and teenage girls to avoid getting pregnant. Similarly, the healthcare sectors ensured that women and girls have access to contraceptives by providing community based education on the use of contraceptives. Second, the healthcare sector developed programs that provided sex education to the young generation. The youth development program’s primary objective was to prevent the unintended conceptions among teenagers by strengthening secondary preventive efforts through support, education and employment. Also, it offered sex based education that was primarily linked to contraceptive services.

Lastly, the government and healthcare sectors have been working on convincing leader to stabilize the population growth by practicing human rights and development. When leaders spread the concept of right-based population policy, the policy maker would implement the policies by ethically addressing the challenges related to population hence empowering women to make the right choices.

Factors that might have contributed to the Changes in the Number of Live Births

The forecast graph shows a rising rate of the future live births in the United States. The U.S. fertility is higher since most of the women are between the age of 20 years and 44 years. The intention by most residence in the United States to have children will contribute to the rising rate of births. The other factor that will increase the fertility of a population is the religion. According to the report from the National Center for Health Statistics, between the 2010 and 2015, Muslims have shown the highest fertility rate. They have a higher average per women than other religions. Third, due to an increase in the number of unwanted births, the future rate of births will increase (Shi and Douglas 120). The unwanted births are because of teenage and unintended pregnancies.

The Future Government and healthcare Plans

The government and healthcare sectors are working on strategies that will control the high birth rates in the future. The healthcare sectors are focusing on improving the use of contraceptives and other behaviors that might prevent pregnancy through the provision of clear and unambiguous information. The information will be disseminated through participatory teaching methods. In addition, the healthcare sectors are planning to improve on their staff selection and training programs. The programs provide long-term services that specifically meet the needs of young people who are prone to sexual abuse. The healthcare sectors are also planning to join up services that will aim at preventing unintended pregnancies by working in partnership with the community.

Conclusion

This project explained a time series forecast of the monthly number of live births at a hospital in the United States. The reliable and most appropriate method that was proposed was winters method. The project used the JMP model to provide clear illustrations by using Winters method additive, ARIMA and seasonal ARIMA. All the output from JMP have been explained in this project. The ARIMA model was used to forecast a single time series. Lastly, in the last three years, the health facilities employed certain strategies to curb the rising rates of live births. They proposed the use of family planning methods that ensured women and girls avoid unwanted pregnancies. In addition, they also ensured the young generations enroll in sex education programs.

Works Cited

Lawrence, Kenneth D, Ronald K. Klimberg, and Sheila M. Lawrence. Fundamentals of Forecasting Using Excel. New York, N.Y: Industrial Press, 2009. Print.

National Center for Health Statistics. Retrieved from   http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/provisional_tables/Provisional_Table01_2014Dec.pdf

Shi, Leiyu, and Douglas A. Singh. Delivering health care in America. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 2014.

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