In a right-skewed distribution of household incomes in a village, which measure of central tendency is MOST appropriate to represent the typical household income?

• A Mean
• B Mode
• C Geometric mean
• D Median ✓

Explanation

In a skewed distribution, the mean is pulled toward the tail by extreme values and does not represent the typical observation. The median (middle value when sorted) is resistant to outliers and best represents the central tendency in skewed data. Mode is the most frequent value and may be useful for categorical data but is not the best summary for skewed continuous income data. Geometric mean is useful for log-normally distributed data (e.g., antibody titres, bacterial counts) but not necessarily incomes.

Reference: Park's Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine, 27th ed.

High-yield for: NEET PGINI-CETNExTFMGEUSMLEPLABMRCP

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