Andrew BellThe University of Sheffield | Sheffield · Sheffield Methods Institute
Andrew Bell
PhD(Bris)
About
42
Publications
248,066
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
June 2015 - present
September 2014 - June 2015
October 2011 - September 2014
Position
- PhD in Advanced Quantitiative Methods / Geography
Description
- Title: Understanding spatial and temporal context and heterogeneity in the social sciences, using panel data. Funded by the ESRC.
Education
October 2007 - June 2011
Publications
Publications (42)
It is claimed the hierarchical-age–period–cohort (HAPC) model solves the age–period–cohort (APC) identification problem. However, this is debateable; simulations show situations where the model produces incorrect results, countered by proponents of the model arguing those simulations are not relevant to real-life scenarios. This paper moves beyond...
Context: Age, period and birth cohort (APC) effects have been known for decades in biological, health and social sciences. However, exact collinearity between these three (Age = Year – Birth Year) leads to difficulty estimating these effects. It is thus impossible to estimate linear components of these effects without strong assumptions about at le...
The challenges facing a new independent group leader, principal investigator (PI) or university lecturer are formidable: secure funding, recruit staff and students, establish a research programme, give lectures, and carry out various administrative duties. Here we report the results of a survey of individuals appointed as new group leaders, PIs or...
Multilevel models have recently been used to empirically investigate the idea that social characteristics are intersectional such as age, sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic position interact with each other to drive outcomes. Some argue this approach solves the multiple-testing problem found in standard dummy-variable (fixed-effects) regression, bec...
This paper assesses modelling choices available to researchers using multilevel (including longitudinal) data. We present key features, capabilities, and limitations of fixed (FE) and random (RE) effects models, including the within-between RE model, sometimes misleadingly labelled a ‘hybrid’ model. We show the latter is unambiguously a RE model, a...
This study revisits the effects of mammography screening programs on inequalities in breast screening uptake in Switzerland. The progressive introduction of regional mammography programs by 12 out of the 26 Swiss cantons (regions) since 1999 offers an opportunity to perform an ecological quasi-experimental study. We examine absolute income and mari...
Background
The concept of “intersectionality” is increasingly employed within public health arenas, particularly in North America, and is often heralded as offering great potential to advance health inequalities research and action. Given persistently poor progress towards tackling health inequalities, and recent calls to reframe this agenda in the...
Multilevel models (aka mixed models, random effects models, hierarchical linear models) have been used widely when considering age, period and cohort (APC) effects. In some cases, this is presented as a solution to the identification problem, for example the ‘Hierarchical APC model’. This chapter will show why this is not the case, using both simul...
Age, Period and Cohort Effects: Statistical Analysis and the Identification Problem gives a number of perspectives from top methodologists and applied researchers on the best ways to attempt to answer Age–Period–Cohort related questions about society.
Age–Period–Cohort (APC) analysis is a fundamental topic for any quantitative social scientist stu...
Background: The concept of ‘intersectionality’ is increasingly employed within public health arenas, particularly in North America, and is often heralded as offering great potential to advance health inequalities research and action. Given persistently poor progress towards tackling health inequalities, and recent calls to reframe this agenda in th...
The concept of 'intersectionality' is increasingly employed within public health arenas, particularly in North America, and is often heralded as offering great potential to advance health inequalities research and action. Given persistently poor progress towards tackling health inequalities, and recent calls to reframe this agenda in the UK and Eur...
Background: The concept of ‘intersectionality’ is increasingly employed within public health arenas, particularly in North America, and is often heralded as offering great potential to advance health inequalities research and action. Given persistently poor progress towards tackling health inequalities, and recent calls to reframe this agenda in th...
The concept of ‘intersectionality’ is increasingly employed within public health arenas, particularly in North America, and is often heralded as offering great potential to advance health inequalities research and action. Given persistently poor progress towards tackling health inequalities, and recent calls to reframe this agenda in the UK and Eur...
Chronic diseases and their inequalities amongst older adults are a significant public health challenge. Prevention and treatment of chronic diseases will benefit from insight into which population groups show greatest risk. Biomarkers are indicators of the biological mechanisms underlying health and disease. We analysed disparities in a common set...
https://uk.sagepub.com/en-gb/eur/making-sense-of-data-in-the-media/book260741
The amount of data produced, captured and transmitted through the media has never been greater. But for this data to be useful, it needs to be properly understood and claims made about or with data need to be properly scrutinized.
Through a series of examples of statist...
The data in this report summarises the responses gathered from 365 principal investigators of academic laboratories, who started their independent positions in the UK within the last 6 years up to 2018. We find that too many new investigators express frustration and poor optimism for the future. These data also reveal, that many of these individual...
The data in this report summarises the responses gathered from 365 principle investigators of academic laboratories, who started their independent positions in the UK within the last 6 years up to 2018. We find that too many new investigators express frustration and poor optimism for the future. These data also reveal, that many of these individual...
Kelley at al. argue that group-mean-centering covariates in multilevel models is dangerous, since— they claim—it generates results that are biased and misleading. We argue instead that what is dangerous is Kelley et al.'s unjustified assault on a simple statistical procedure that is enormously helpful, if not vital, in analyses of multilevel data....
Multilevel models have recently been used to uncover socio-demographic intersectional effects – interactions between e.g. age, sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic position etc. Some argue this approach solves the multiple-testing problem found in standard dummy-variable (fixed-effects) regression, because the intersections are automatically shrunk toward...
Post-print version available at http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/123173/. The screening effectiveness of a chemical similarity search depends on a range of factors, including the bioactivity of interest, the types of similarity coefficient and fingerprint that comprise the similarity measure, and the nature of the reference structure that is being se...
Stata replication file for paper entitled "The Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort model: Why does it find the results that it finds?"
This paper explores discrete changes in age-specific mortality risk across periods and cohorts, using data from 40 countries during the twentieth century, with a particular focus on the UK. Our interest is in the discrete changes in mortality seen as a result of global events, rather than the overall changes in mortality throughout the twentieth ce...
Post-print version available at http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/95190/. Urbanization has long been seen by scholars and policymakers as a disruptive process that can contribute to social and political unrest, yet there is little cross-national quantitative empirical research on the topic. In this paper we provide a comprehensive analysis of the link...
Post-print version available at http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/96995/. This paper: (a) finds rankings of who are the best formula 1 (F1) drivers of all time, conditional on team performance; (b) quantifies how much teams and drivers matter; and (c) quantifies how team and driver effects vary over time and under different racing conditions. The fini...
Open Access: available at http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319204833
This chapter considers age, period and cohort (APC) as different sources of health-related change. Age (or, life course) effects are individual, often biological, sources of change, whilst periods and cohorts can be thought of as social contexts affecting individuals that resi...
This article reanalyses data used by Reinhart and Rogoff (2010c, American Economic Review, 100: 573–78—RR), and later Herndon et al. (2013, Cambridge Journal of Economics, online, doi: 10.1093/cje/bet075) to consider
the relationship between growth and debt in developed countries. The consistency over countries and the causal direction of
RR’s so c...
Post-print version available at http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/87648/. This commentary clarifies our original commentary (Bell & Jones, 2014c) and illustrates some concerns we have regarding the response article in this issue (Reither et al., 2015). In particular, we argue that (a) linear effects do not have to be produced by exact linear mathemati...
This article challenges Fixed Effects (FE) modeling as the ‘default’ for time-series-cross-sectional and panel data. Understanding different within and between effects is crucial when choosing modeling strategies. The downside of Random Effects (RE) modeling— correlated lower-level covariates and higher-level residuals—is omitted-variable bias, sol...
Previous work (Bell and Jones 2013a, c; Luo and Hodges 2013) has shown that, when there are trends in either the period or cohort residuals of Yang and Land’s Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort (APC) model (Yang and Land 2006; Yang and Land 2013), the model can incorrectly estimate those trends, because of the well-known APC identification problem. Her...
There is ongoing debate regarding the shape of life-course trajectories in mental health. Many argue the relationship is U-shaped, with mental health declining with age to mid-life, then improving. However, I argue that these models are beset by the age-period-cohort (APC) identification problem, whereby age, cohort and year of measurement are exac...
This comment assesses how age, period and cohort (APC) effects are modelled with panel data in the social sciences. It considers variations on a 2-level multilevel model which has been used to show apparent evidence for simultaneous APC effects. We show that such an interpretation is often misleading, and that the formulation and interpretation of...
BACKGROUND
Whilst some argue that a solution to the age-period-cohort (APC) ‘identification problem’ is impossible, numerous methodological solutions have been proposed, including Yang and Land’s Hierarchical-APC (HAPC) model: a multilevel model considering periods and cohorts as cross-classified contexts in which individuals exist.
OBJECTIVE
To as...
Background: Whilst some argue that a solution to the age-period-cohort (APC) 'identification problem' is impossible, numerous methodological solutions have been proposed, including Yang and Land's Hierarchical-APC (HAPC) model: a multilevel model considering periods and cohorts as cross-classified contexts in which individuals exist. Objective: To...
Reither et al. (2009) use a Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort model (HAPC - Yang & Land, 2006) to assess changes in obesity in the USA population. Their results suggest that there is only a minimal effect of cohorts, and that it is periods which have driven the increase in obesity over time. We use simulations to show that this result may be incorrect...
Post-print version available at http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/87660/.
This commentary discusses the age-period-cohort identification problem. It shows that, despite a plethora of proposed solutions in the literature, no model is able to solve the identification problem because the identification problem is inherent to the real-world processes be...
It is sometimes said that multilevel models make no substantive difference to interpretation and represent something of a fuss over nothing. This paper demonstrates that this is not always the case with a simple example. It is shown that differences between a singlelevel and multilevel model will depend on the nature of the between and within grou...
Available at: http://www.cmm.bris.ac.uk/lemma - you have to register for the course, but it is free to do so. A sample is also available at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/cmm/migrated/documents/12-mlwin-example.pdf
Projects
Projects (5)
The main aim of this ESRC funded project is to investigate the intersectional complexity of later life (50+) chronic diseases, specifically type 2 diabetes, heart disease and obesity, thereby furthering knowledge and understanding of inequalities in healthy ageing. This complexity lies in how the fine-grained socio-demographic inequalities in these long-term conditions, as measured via biomarker data, result from dis/advantage over the lifecourse.
Under this overall aim the project has a number of specific objectives:
1) To pursue a highly novel, biosocial approach to chronic disease and healthy ageing inequalities; to advance UK social science knowledge on this topic.
2) To map intersectional inequalities in diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease, and related health/functional ageing outcomes. This will involve identifying the intersectional deprivations at particular risk, which will serve as a point of departure for the rest of the project.
3) To analyse the lifecourse and health practice factors that contribute to intersectional inequalities and their later life trajectories.
4) To produce evidence that can be used to inform approaches to tackling healthy ageing inequalities.
5) To promote a conceptual shift in how inequalities of healthy ageing and chronic disease are understood among non-academic stakeholders. This will draw attention to particularly disadvantaged 'social locations', as a matter of social justice and fairness.
Further details can be found here: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES/R00921X/1
