Statistics for Healthcare

Members of Smu are involved in a number of projects concerning the development of novel statistical methodology for specific healthcare applications. Examples of such projects include:

1. Work on the management of longitudinal data collected studies of Huntington's disease. Work on the reliability and minimal detectable change of measures of participation, functional activities and impairments in individuals with Huntington's disease is on-going. Such work is closely aligned to the European Huntington's Disease Network.
2. In collaboration with the Welsh Ambulance Service Trust, Singular spectrum analysis is being used to forecast Welsh Ambulance Demand, thus enabling the development of effective and efficient staff rosters. Similarly, work on predicting demand at healthcare facilities across the UK, taking into account additional variables (such as weather) is also on-going.
3. Using measurement error models to establish reference intervals for screening programmes.
4. Optimal statistical procedures in genome-wide association studies.

More recently, Smu has become an integral part of Health Modelling Centre Cymru which is an initiative of the Wales Institute of Mathematical and Computational Sciences, fostering collaboration across different research areas of the mathematical and computational sciences, to create a more vibrant and effective interface between the mathematical research community, the medical research community, and the health industry. Smu aids this all-Wales centre focus on producing high quality research, transitioning that research into effective outcomes, building capacity, and promoting the interaction between mathematical and computational modelling and better health delivery.

Cardiff Investigators

• Prof. Paul Harper
• Prof. Anatoly Zhigljavsky
• Dr. Jonathan Gillard
• Dr. Vincent Knight
• Dr. Karl-Michael Schmidt
• Dr. Valentina Moskvina
• Miss Julie Williams

Selected publications

• Gillard, J. W., Harper, P. R., Knight, V. A., and Williams, J. L. (2010). Forecasting Welsh ambulance demand. In Proceedings of 2nd Student Conference in Operational Research.
• Williams, J. L., Gillard, J. W., Harper, P. R., and Knight, V. A. (2010). Forecasting Welsh ambulance demand using singular spectrum analysis. In A. Testi, E. Tanfani, E. Ivaldi, G. Carello, R. Aringhieri, and V. Fragnelli, editors, Operations research for patient - centered health care delivery. Proceedings of the XXXVI International ORAHS Conference, 2010.
• Williams, J. L., Gillard, J. W., Harper, P. R., and Knight, V. A. (2011). Predicting Ambulance Demand Using Singular Spectrum Analysis. Journal of Operational Research.
• Gillard, J. W., Knight, V. A. (2011). Using Singular Spectrum Analysis to Obtain Staffing Level Requirements in Healthcare. European Journal of Operational Research.
• Gillard, J. W. (2011). Linear Time Dependent Reference Intervals where there is Measurement Error in the Time Variable - a Parametric Approach. Statistical Methods for Medical Research.
• Gillard, J. W. (2011). A Generalised Box-Cox Transformation for the Parametric Estimation of Clinical Reference Intervals. Journal of Applied Statistics.