Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2018/iii/paper-218/4/c/solution

Under a correctly specified Poisson regression with adequate expected counts, the residual Poisson deviance is approximately chi-squared distribution with residual degrees of freedom. The observed gives
Thus the ordinary Poisson model gives a very poor fit under this goodness-of-fit approximation. This is consistent with overdispersion, although a wrong mean model or dependence can also cause lack of fit; quasi-Poisson variance inflation alone does not establish that the mean model is adequate.
For Quasi-Poisson regression, . The Pearson dispersion estimator is
It uses squared Pearson residuals, not the residual deviance divided by 102. The fitted coefficients are unchanged, and their estimated covariance matrix is multiplied by . With , standard errors increase by , so the main treatment coefficient has
The main Progabide coefficient is not significant at 5% after this dispersion adjustment. R uses a Student's t-distribution when dispersion is estimated, as described in its GLM summary documentation; the large-sample normal approximation also gives the same decision.
Because an interaction term is present, this tests the treatment contrast at baseline zero. An overall absence of treatment influence requires the joint null . The printed marginal standard errors do not give their covariance, so they are insufficient to calculate that joint Wald test, or the treatment contrast test at an arbitrary nonzero baseline.

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