Complex systems modelling of alcohol consumption dynamics in the British population
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Sheffield
Department Name: Automatic Control and Systems Eng
Abstract
Excessive alcohol consumption (drinking the equivalent, roughly, of more than 2 bottles of wine every week, or more than 4 pints of beer in a single evening) is associated with a variety of harmful outcomes, to both individuals and to society. For example, people who are drunk have a higher risk of committing criminal damage, leading to victim distress, costs to the criminal justice system, and increased insurance premiums. As a result of these harmful outcomes, governments tend to want to reduce the levels of excessive drinking in society. However, in order to be confident of taking the most appropriate action, governments need to know about how alcohol consumption is changing across society, and to understand the underlying factors that are responsible for these changes. In Britain, most of the knowledge about levels of drinking comes from surveys. In most years since 1978, the residents of about 10,000 British households have been asked about their drinking behaviour. The actual households involved change every year. The surveys allow us to estimate, for example, what proportion of women aged 18-to-24 years old are drinking excessively each year. Until recently, the surveys suggested that this proportion had stayed relatively unchanged over time: the proportion of 18-to-24 year old women who drank excessively in 1988 was similar to the proportion who drank excessively in 1978, and as both groups of women got older the proportion of them who drank to excess reduced. However, over more recent surveys, the proportion of 18-to-24 year old women who drink excessively has been rising toward the proportion of excessive male drinkers in this same age group. Whilst there has been some speculation as to why this change might have happened (for example, women staying single for longer, or perceptions of increased acceptability of female drinking, or the increased availability of alcohol in supermarkets), nobody has explored these reasons scientifically or attempted to quantify what might happen next. This project aims to address the issue of why alcohol consumption is changing over time (as in the example above) using a set of ideas and mathematical tools from an academic discipline known as complex systems modelling. It will look for patterns in the survey data, and to see if these patterns are changing over time (for example, were the sort of people who were drinking excessively in 2010 the same sort of people who were drinking excessively in 1980?). It will link these patterns to wider changes and events in society (for example, the point at which supermarkets were allowed to sell alcohol on Sundays), using methods from the discipline of economics, to identify which factors might be important. These findings will then be used to explore in detail the changes in drinking behaviour by specific groups in society. The project will combine knowledge from the academic disciplines of sociology and social psychology with survey data on groups of people born in 1958 and 1970 (whose drinking has been followed over time) to see if the drinking behaviour we see in Britain as a whole can be explained by what is happening to individual people's drinking-related attitudes, intentions and behaviours as they interact with each other and grow older. The project's findings will help inform the future actions that governments may take when trying to reduce levels of excessive alcohol consumption in society.
Planned Impact
Policies that aim to reduce the burden to society of alcohol-related harm are the focus of significant and sustained attention, both in the UK and internationally. The range of adverse social consequences of drinking is wide, covering health (where alcohol consumption is estimated to be responsible for 3.8% of global deaths), crime and anti-social behaviour, and reduced productivity. The most recent estimate for England placed the total annual economic burden at between £18.5b and £20b. At the same time, drinking is an integral part of life for many people, who may perceive both individual and societal benefits from the consumption of alcohol.
Current and planned policies being debated in the UK include: taxation and minimum unit pricing, stricter licensing regulations, and universal screening and brief intervention programmes. Policymakers are key beneficiaries of the research: at local levels (Licensing Authorities, Police Authorities, Directors of Public Health), national levels (Whitehall policy teams in the Cabinet Office, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Education, Department of Health, and Home Office; and also the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), and international levels (European Union, World Health Organisation). Those organisations seeking to influence policymaking are also beneficiaries (particularly arms-length and third sector organisations with public health advocacy roles: historically these have included Chief Medical Officers, Alcohol Concern, Institute of Alcohol Studies, Royal College of Physicians, British Liver Trust). A third set of beneficiaries will be those non-academic organisations performing alcohol policy appraisal (historically these have included the Institute for Fiscal Studies and RAND Corporation). Downstream beneficiaries of well-informed alcohol policy implementations are the public and employers, in terms of health, wellbeing, reduced opportunity costs, and economic competitiveness.
The ability of macro-level policies to target population subgroups is important to policymakers, but existing models are based on coarse, pre-defined, age/sex categories. The research will provide a much finer-grained understanding of changes in drinking within subgroups, where the definitions of the subgroups emerge from the evidence. The availability of alcohol (e.g. hours of sale or number of outlets) is believed to be an important factor affecting consumption, but specific policies to regulate availability are yet to be proposed. The research will provide an indication of how availability policies can be designed effectively by identifying the causal pathways that produce changes in drinking behaviour. Policies that affect the pricing and promotion of alcohol are in the process of design and implementation in the UK, and are attracting significant international attention. However the model-based appraisals of policy effectiveness and net benefit that are important to policy decision-making (e.g. choosing the threshold for a minimum unit price) are measured relative to a purely hypothetical scenario of stationary drinking levels. The dynamic and predictive elements of the research aims to provide policymakers with at least short-term forecasting capability, enabling more accurate estimation of the 'do nothing' policy option and a more realistic reference point for net benefit calculations.
Whilst drinking behaviour has been selected as the test bed for the proposed methods development, the techniques that emerge - and the lessons that are learned - will be useful for policy appraisal work in other areas of behaviour change. With the World Health Organisation estimating that tobacco use, high blood glucose, physical inactivity and obesity are responsible for just over one quarter of total global deaths, the potential longer-term benefits of the research in related applications is substantial.
Current and planned policies being debated in the UK include: taxation and minimum unit pricing, stricter licensing regulations, and universal screening and brief intervention programmes. Policymakers are key beneficiaries of the research: at local levels (Licensing Authorities, Police Authorities, Directors of Public Health), national levels (Whitehall policy teams in the Cabinet Office, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Department for Education, Department of Health, and Home Office; and also the devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), and international levels (European Union, World Health Organisation). Those organisations seeking to influence policymaking are also beneficiaries (particularly arms-length and third sector organisations with public health advocacy roles: historically these have included Chief Medical Officers, Alcohol Concern, Institute of Alcohol Studies, Royal College of Physicians, British Liver Trust). A third set of beneficiaries will be those non-academic organisations performing alcohol policy appraisal (historically these have included the Institute for Fiscal Studies and RAND Corporation). Downstream beneficiaries of well-informed alcohol policy implementations are the public and employers, in terms of health, wellbeing, reduced opportunity costs, and economic competitiveness.
The ability of macro-level policies to target population subgroups is important to policymakers, but existing models are based on coarse, pre-defined, age/sex categories. The research will provide a much finer-grained understanding of changes in drinking within subgroups, where the definitions of the subgroups emerge from the evidence. The availability of alcohol (e.g. hours of sale or number of outlets) is believed to be an important factor affecting consumption, but specific policies to regulate availability are yet to be proposed. The research will provide an indication of how availability policies can be designed effectively by identifying the causal pathways that produce changes in drinking behaviour. Policies that affect the pricing and promotion of alcohol are in the process of design and implementation in the UK, and are attracting significant international attention. However the model-based appraisals of policy effectiveness and net benefit that are important to policy decision-making (e.g. choosing the threshold for a minimum unit price) are measured relative to a purely hypothetical scenario of stationary drinking levels. The dynamic and predictive elements of the research aims to provide policymakers with at least short-term forecasting capability, enabling more accurate estimation of the 'do nothing' policy option and a more realistic reference point for net benefit calculations.
Whilst drinking behaviour has been selected as the test bed for the proposed methods development, the techniques that emerge - and the lessons that are learned - will be useful for policy appraisal work in other areas of behaviour change. With the World Health Organisation estimating that tobacco use, high blood glucose, physical inactivity and obesity are responsible for just over one quarter of total global deaths, the potential longer-term benefits of the research in related applications is substantial.
People |
ORCID iD |
Robin Purshouse (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Moyo D
(2015)
Agile Development of an Attitude-Behaviour Driven Simulation of Alcohol Consumption Dynamics
in Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation
Purshouse RC
(2014)
Commentary on Nakamura et al. (2014): Alcohol policy appraisal and evaluation-to understand what is happening and why, we need better data on alcohol as a commodity.
in Addiction (Abingdon, England)
Purshouse R
(2017)
Reply to Klaus Mäkelä's Cost-of-Alcohol Studies as a Research Programme
in Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
Probst C
(2015)
Transition probabilities for four states of alcohol use in adolescence and young adulthood: what factors matter when?
in Addiction (Abingdon, England)
Purshouse R
(2017)
Typology and Dynamics of Heavier Drinking Styles in Great Britain: 1978-2010
in Alcohol and Alcoholism
Description | Theory-led, validated model of behaviour change: We developed an agent-based model (ABM) of alcohol use, representing changes in drinking for the population of England between 2003 and 2009. The usefulness of ABMs is often criticized on the basis that the agents (usually representing individuals) are encoded with very crude mechanisms of behaviour change and the emergent outputs of the ABMs are not validated against empirical data. Our approach addressed both of these limitations. We used a theory-led approach to design the ABM behaviour change mechanisms - specifically, we used the Theory of Planned Behaviour to encode a causal relationship between drinking frequency and attitudes towards drinking, perceived norms about drinking, and perceived controls on drinking (including social roles such as caring for a child). To identify parameters for our model (e.g. the strength of the relationship between attitudes and behaviour) we needed to fuse together data from three separate sources held by the UK Data Archive: the Offending, Crime and Justice Survey, the British Household Panel Survey and the General Lifestyle Survey. Once our ABM was developed, we validated its ability to represent consumption change using another separate survey, the Health Survey for England. We found that, when initialized with data for 2003, our model was able to accurately predict annual consumption change as far as 2006. The theoretical and methodological quality of the research was recognized in the award of the Ole-Jørgen Skog Award for Early Career Scientist to project researcher Daniel Moyo at the 2014 Kettil Bruun Society conference. We created a summary 'one-pager' of our approach at the request of senior analysts in the UK Government. We also published our research process in the Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation as a case study in good-practice agile software development for ABMs in a research setting. Typology of heavier drinking styles: We identified a typology of drinking styles for Great Britain, focusing on people whose alcohol use is at levels beyond the UK Government safe drinking guidelines. Using repeated cross-sectional data from the General Lifestyle Survey, 1978-2010, we applied clustering methods to identify and track distinct styles of heavier drinking over time. We found that the typology of heavier drinking styles was stable over the 30 year period, despite changes in the overall prevalence of heavier drinking - the latter being driven by a five-fold increase in the prevalence of a beer-abstention drinking style enacted by predominantly female drinkers. This research is published in the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism. Model of alcohol use transitions in adolescence and young adulthood: We developed a Markov model of transitions between different levels of alcohol use, representing the drinking of young people in the Munich region of Germany between 1995 and 2005. Markov models are potentially important for cost-effectiveness analyses of alcohol interventions but their availability is highly limited. The transition probabilities in our model are adjusted for age, sex and socio-economic status - all key variables of interest to policymakers. This research is published in the journal Addiction. |
Exploitation Route | We have secured funding for a major project to continue the research themes in WP2 through to 2021. The project - known as CASCADE - is funded by the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and is an international collaboration between researchers at four world-leading centres in alcohol studies and policy modelling - the Sheffield Alcohol Research Group at the University of Sheffield, UK, the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute in California, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The project both extends the methods developed in the ESRC grant and also expands the reach of the research from a domestic context to support for alcohol policymaking in the US. In terms of application of our ideas, we have engaged with UK Government analysts across a range of sectors who are interested in designing interventions that aim to change behaviours within particular groups in society. Our modelling approach - with its explicit representation of social action processes - has appeal because it provides a scientific basis for arguing why an intervention might work and provides a framework for data collection during pilot studies. Theory-led, validated models, based on generative mechanisms of action and interaction, are seen as having potential uses for policy appraisal and evaluation (including Impact Assessments). Our approach is currently being socialised within UK Government, with support from the Chief Analyst in the Department for Work and Pensions. |
Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Education,Energy,Environment,Healthcare,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Transport |
Description | Emerging impact is arising from two of the key methodological findings from the project: • Finding 1 - the use of multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) in combination with hierarchical clustering can be effective in identifying behavioural clusters in secondary data; • Finding 2 - theory-based modelling, embedded within a microsimulation architecture, can reproduce population-level behaviour change over time with demonstrated short-range predictive capability. The methodological findings were demonstrated within the context of alcohol consumption behaviours in the UK population over the period 1978-2010 (for Finding 1) and 2003-2010 (for Finding 2). The routes to impact so far have involved translation and extension of these findings: • Route 1 - working with users to translate both findings to other areas of public policy in the UK; • Route 2 - collaborating with users and world-leading researchers to extend the use and geographical reach of Finding 2. Route 1: The main types of user we have engaged with are analysts working in the UK Civil Service. Analysts operate within all of the major UK Government departments, other public bodies and also in the devolved Scottish and Welsh administrations. The main role of an analyst is to support policy and operational decision-making. We used our network of contacts to raise awareness of the findings within the analyst community. Initial interest led to us being invited to engage with initiatives developed by the Government Economic and Social Research (GESR) Team within the Civil Service. The GESR Team is the professional support unit for the Government Social Research (GSR) and Government Economic Service networks, and also engages with a wider analytical audience including statisticians, operational researchers and psychologists. The evolving impact work we are doing is focused on support for Objective 4 - 'Building capability for all' - of the GSR Strategy 2015-2020; this objective seeks to promote professional development within the analyst community, particularly by providing development experiences for identified capability gaps and by facilitating knowledge sharing. By engaging with GESR we have achieved good reach within the analyst community - including engagement with users from eight government departments and agencies: Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), Department for Education, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, HM Revenue & Customs, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Health and Safety Executive, UK Commission for Employment & Skills and Ministry of Justice. We have engaged with users at a variety of levels, including with the Chief Economist at DWP. So far we have provided four seminars to different GESR audiences, aimed at knowledge sharing and capability development. The seminars were designed in collaboration with senior stakeholders and focused on tutorial-style guidance on the methods, together with 'good practice' and 'lessons learned' experiences of how the methods were selected, shaped and applied in the area of alcohol policy. The relevance of the approaches to wider policy areas was also emphasised. The seminars are stimulating further engagement with analysts working on 'live' policy and operations questions within government. The methods in Finding 1 have supported a segmentation analysis of service users for one of the main benefits administered by DWP. Finding 1 has also raised awareness of the utility of MCA for analysis of categorical data - with DWP analysts now actively considering the approach as part of their toolbox when approaching a new problem. We are continuing our engagement with GESR initiatives and will continue, via our network of contacts, to offer bespoke support to analysts working on live problems within government. Where such support requires more than informal consultancy, we have the opportunity to seek resource from the University of Sheffield's 'Impact, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange' account. Route 2: We have socialised Finding 2 through the engagement with GESR initiatives described earlier. Senior stakeholders in GESR perceive potential benefits from translation of Finding 2 to other areas of policy and operations; we worked with them to create a one-page summary of the approach and its benefits to be used in discussions within the organisation. The use of micro-simulation and agent-based modelling is an on-going subject of debate and discussion within the analyst community and we will continue to engage with this conversation in support of emerging impact. To extend the geographical reach of Finding 2 we are collaborating with world-leading experts from North America (the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Canada, the Public Health Institute in California, and Johns Hopkins University in Maryland). Together we submitted a major proposal to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to further develop the methodology of Finding 2 and to apply it to key alcohol policy questions in the US (both at national level and at state level). The proposal - Calibrated Agent Simulations for Combined Analysis of Drinking Etiologies (CASCADE) - was accepted for funding ($2,313,250) and the five-year project commenced in August 2016. |
First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Government, Democracy and Justice |
Impact Types | Policy & public services |
Description | Featured in an article on Alcohol Policy UK website |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Citation in other policy documents |
URL | http://www.alcoholpolicy.net/2017/02/the-rich-tapestry-of-alcohol-consumption-insights-heavy-drinkin... |
Description | One-pager on behavioural modelling for UK Government analysts and other stakeholders |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
Description | Submission to Scotland's Court of Session on Minimum Unit Pricing |
Geographic Reach | Multiple continents/international |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
URL | http://news.scotland.gov.uk/News/Minimum-pricing-will-be-heard-in-Europe-c0e.aspx |
Description | PAR-13-374 Modeling Social Behavior (R01) |
Amount | $2,313,250 (USD) |
Funding ID | 1R01AA024443-01A1 |
Organisation | National Institutes of Health (NIH) |
Department | National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) |
Sector | Public |
Country | United States |
Start | 08/2016 |
End | 04/2021 |
Title | Agent-Based Microsimulation of Individual-Level Alcohol Consumption in England |
Description | Alcohol model developed in this project |
Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
Year Produced | 2014 |
Provided To Others? | Yes |
Impact | Engagement activities are ongoing. |
Title | Duty and VAT alcohol pricing model |
Description | Converts floor prices for the sale of alcoholic beverages, between taxation (duty+VAT) and minimum unit price equivalents. |
Type Of Material | Computer model/algorithm |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | The model was requested by the Institute of Alcohol Studies to inform their alcohol policy factsheets. |
URL | http://www.ias.org.uk/Alcohol-knowledge-centre/Price.aspx |
Description | Collaboration on Markov modelling of alcohol use transitions |
Organisation | Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) |
Country | Canada |
Sector | Hospitals |
PI Contribution | We developed the mathematical models and trained a CAMH researcher in these methods. |
Collaborator Contribution | They provided the problem statement, provided the data, and the domain specific knowledge around alcohol use in Germany. |
Impact | Chapter in a report to the European Commission. Journal paper in Addiction. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Title | Agent-Based Microsimulation of Individual-Level Alcohol Consumption in England |
Description | Python and Matlab implementation of the alcohol model developed in this project |
Type Of Technology | Software |
Year Produced | 2014 |
Open Source License? | Yes |
Impact | None known |
URL | https://bitbucket.org/pyabm/pyabm |
Description | A public response to the Adam Smith Institute's critique of the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Debate on the usefulness of mathematical modelling - and specifically the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model - to inform policymaking - and specifically Minimum Unit Pricing for alcoholic beverages. Reported by policymakers and other stakeholders as highly useful in defending policy decisions under attack from special interest groups. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
URL | http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05021/alcohol-minimum-pricing |
Description | Agent-based approaches to modelling social systems |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Invited speaker at a workshop on Quantitative Analysis of Growing Up in Poverty, organised by the University of Sheffield's Centre for Health and Wellbeing in Public Policy. The session spaked debate on the usefulness of agent-based methods for analysing lifecourse effects of inequality. None known |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
URL | http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/cwipp/events/quantitative_methods_childhood_poverty |
Description | Appraisal of Policies, Projects and Programmes in Central Government: Dynamics, uncertainty, and causal mechanisms |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Questions and discussion on the use of microsimulation and agent-based modelling to address policy and planning questions in the UK Department for Work and Pensions Ongoing discussions with DWP analysts. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
Description | Battle of Ideas 2013 - Computer modelling: all about the image? |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Invited panel member at the Battle of Ideas 2013. The debate is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EY-0qxAW2_o Detailed question and answer session with members of the public. Contribution to public debate. Raised awareness of what computer modelling is, and how it can be useful in supporting decision-making. This is a controversial topic, with much negative blogging about the "abuse" of models for decision-making, and it is not clear if anyone changed their views as a result of this discussion. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
URL | http://www.battleofideas.org.uk/2013/session_detail/7900 |
Description | Bridging the macro-micro divide using theory-driven microsimulation: an example in alcohol |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Invited speaker at the University of Sheffield Interdisciplinary Methods & Tools Programme Session 1: What can Agent Based Modelling do for me? Raised awareness of individual-level quantitative modelling approaches and stimulated discussion of the utility of these methods for understanding social phenomena. None known |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://wwwdev.shef.ac.uk/ris/application/events#1 |
Description | Complex systems modelling of alcohol consumption dynamics in Britain 1978-present |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Invited talk at the Centre for Research in Social Simulation at the University of Surrey. Questions and discussion about appropriate quantitative methods for understanding drinking change and stasis in populations. Advancement in the research team's own thinking and approach to answering the research questions for the project. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
Description | Discussant at 40th Annual Meeting of the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Invited discussant at KBS 2014 for contributions by research teams in New Zealand and Sweden. Lively discussion of the strengths and limitations of two quantitative studies of alcohol policy effects. None known |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.kbs2014torino.it/uk/default.asp |
Description | Junk science and booze tax - a study in spin or alcohol consumption modelling for alcohol policy appraisal |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Invited talk at the Centre for Health Economics, University of York. The talk sparked significant debate amongst the audience concerning modelling methods for policy appraisal, and how uncertainty is communicated to policymakers. None known |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
URL | http://www.york.ac.uk/che/seminars/economic-evaluation/2013/robin-purshouse/ |
Description | Live radio interview for Good Evening Wales |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Live interview for BBC Radio Wales' Good Evening Wales programme. Raised public awareness of evidence linking alcohol consumption and crime. Not known |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27119689 |
Description | My application to ESRC Future Research Leaders |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Discussion of what is important to include in Future Research Leaders applications. Increase in requests for advice and information. Unclear if it increased the quality of proposed submissions to ESRC. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013 |
Description | Presentation at DWP Operational Analysis Divisional Meeting |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Discussion on methods and how they might be useful to Operational Analysts in DWP Further meetings within DWP |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Presentation at the Centre for Health Economics, University of York |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Discussion of how uncertainty is handled in policy appraisal models Invitation to speak to external visitor about modelling the relationship between price and consumption. Participation as co-investigator on NERC grant proposal looking at 'Valuing Nature' |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Presentation of project findings, University of Exeter |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Discussion about utility of Bayesian methods for model calibration activities None |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://emps.exeter.ac.uk/computer-science/news/event/?semID=1542&dateID=3826 |
Description | Presentation on REF Impact Case Study at ACSE Away Day |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Discussion of most effective pathways to impact and what constitutes impact. None yet |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Presentation on behavioural modelling to CATCH |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Discussion of potential approaches for modelling human behaviours, and potential routes to funding of ideas None yet |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Presentation to DWP Chief Analyst |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Discussion of potential of approach for supporting decision-making within central government Further workshops and presentations within DWP |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Research seminar at the University of Sheffield |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the methods developed None noted |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Robust model-based appraisal of interventions for population-level behaviour change |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Raised awareness of the potential benefits of using the complex systems methods developed in this project Ongoing discussions with analysts working in central government |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
Description | Seminar to the Sheffield OR Study Group |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Local |
Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
Results and Impact | Discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of multiple correspondence analysis and how attendees might use it as part of their OR roles in UK Government departments. Requests for further information on multiple correspondence analysis |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2015 |
Description | Towards an agent-based modelling framework for public health policy appraisal |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | In-depth discussion of complexity methods for the social sciences None known - the seminar series is still in its early stages. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2013,2014 |
URL | http://blogs.cim.warwick.ac.uk/complexity/what-are-you-working-on/ |
Description | UKCTAS Early Career Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | Yes |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.) |
Results and Impact | Invited panel member at UKCTAS Early Career Workshop. Raised awareness of an academic path that involved time both inside and outside of academia. Talk sparked discussion around career decision-making for early career researchers. None known |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.ukctas.ac.uk/ukctas/events/event-items/early-career-researcher-2014.aspx |