Check below, please.
1) To tackle this question we need to identify two points. Let 1992 be year 1 and 2002, be year 10. So we have (1, 15.3) and (10, 15.09)
2)
a)
So, we can write out the following to find the slope:
[tex]m=\frac{15.09-15.3}{10-1}=-0.02333[/tex]So let's make use of the slope-intercept form to check the value of "b":
[tex]\begin{gathered} y=mx+b,m=-0.0233,(1,15.3) \\ 15.3=-0.02333(1)+b \\ b=15.3233 \end{gathered}[/tex]Thus the linear equation is:
[tex]y=-0.0233x+15.3233[/tex]b) Now for the "b" part. Note that 2012 is 20 years after 1992. Therefore we can write out the following, plugging into x=20
[tex]\begin{gathered} y=-0.0233x+15.3233 \\ y=-0.0233(20)+15.3233 \\ y=14.85 \end{gathered}[/tex]So in 2012, the rate was 14.85 births per thousand people.