Kelvyn Jones

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• FBA FLSW FAcSS PhD(Soton) BSc (Soton)
• Professor at University of Bristol

Contextual quantitative models are receiving considerable attention in the geographic literature in the form of models developed by the "expansion method." The majority of these models have involved the expansion of the fixed part of the model and are in many cases equivalent to standard ANOVA and ANCOVA procedures. Models from a "multilevel perspe...

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...

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...

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...

Ron Johnston was one of the leading human geographers of his generation, a remarkably energetic, prolific and intellectually curious scholar. He was an early advocate of quantitative geography who took a keen interest in the intellectual development of his subject. He was particularly known for his major contributions in urban geography, political...

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...

Was the 2016 presidential election a deviating contest, with a map that differed markedly from the apparently settled pattern of the preceding three decades? Some commentators suggested that Trump’s campaign – focused on the ‘white working class’ for whom he promised to ‘Make America Great Again’ – was such an election. This chapter addresses wheth...

Mental illness and mental wellbeing are related but distinct constructs. Despite this, geographical enquiry often references the two as interchangeable indicators of mental health and assumes the relationship between the two is consistent across different geographical scales. Furthermore, the importance of geography in such research is commonly ass...

Analyses of health over time must consider the potential impacts of ageing as well as any effects relating to cohort differences. The British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) and Understanding Society longitudinal studies are employed to assess trends in mental ill-health over a 26-year period. This analysis uses cross-classified multilevel models in...

Mental illness and mental wellbeing are related but distinct constructs. Despite this, geographical enquiry often references the two as interchangeable indicators of mental health and assumes the relationship between the two is consistent across different geographical scales. Furthermore, the importance of geography in such research is commonly ass...

In the previous two reports in this series, we discussed the history and current status of quantitative geography. In this final report, we focus on the future. We argue that quantitative geographers are most helpful when we can simplify difficult problems using our distinct domain expertise. To do this, we must clarify the theory underpinning core...

In the previous two parts of this series, we discussed the history and current status of quantitative geography. In this final part, we focus on the future. We argue that quantitative geographers are most helpful when we can simplify difficult problems using our distinct domain expertise. To do this, we must clarify the theory underpinning core con...

American politics have become increasingly polarized in recent decades, not only ideologically but also geographically. The extent of that geographical polarization is explored at the county and SMSA scales for the presidential elections held between 1992 and 2016 and also, at the much finer, precinct, scale for the 2008, 2012 and 2016 elections. T...

This paper aims to create reliable social neighbourhood variables using both multilevel factor analysis and ecometrics. Data is derived from a community-survey undertook in Medellin-Colombia, a developing south American country with potentially different neighbourhood constructs compared with the developed north and west countries. For this, the pa...

Background: Mental health and its complexity, measurement and social determinants are increasingly important avenues of research for social scientists. Quantitative social science commonly investigates mental health as captured by population screening metrics. One of the most common of these metrics is the 12-Item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ...

The first of these three reports reprised human geography’s theoretical and quantitative revolutions’ origins, covering the philosophy, focus and methods that dominated their early years. Over the subsequent decades the nature of work categorised as quantitative human geography changed very considerably – in philosophy, focus and methods. This seco...

Intersectionality is an increasingly popular concept across several social sciences but has received little explicit attention within British political science. This note introduces the concept, identifies some problems in its application to the study of voting behaviour, and illustrates its use by addressing the extent to which there was a ‘youthq...

A very large literature has explored the intensity of urban residential segregation using the index of dissimilarity. Several recent studies have undertaken such analyses at multiple spatial scales, invariably reaching the conclusion that the finer grained the spatial scale, the greater the segregation. Such findings, however, overstate the intensi...

Mental health and its complexity, measurement and social determinants are increasingly important avenues of research for social scientists. Quantitative social science commonly investigates mental health as captured by population screening metrics. One of the most common of these metrics is the 12-Item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). Despite...

The purpose of these two volumes is to provide a thorough account on how to implement multilevel models from a social science perspective in general and geographic perspective in particular. They specifically serve as a handbook for the multilevel modelling courses run by Kelvyn Jones and SV Subramanian. We use the MLwiN software throughout. The Ju...

The socio-spatial structure of US metropolitan areas is the foundation of their electoral geographies: political parties and their candidates draw their support from separate groups within society whose spatial segregation is reproduced in voting patterns. As a consequence, when there are changes in a party's support base these should be reflected...

Administrative data, analysed by geographical area, can tell us much about society. But the choice of geographical area frames how we see the world — and a poor choice of frame will present a misleading perspective. By Ron Johnston, Kelvyn Jones and David Manley Administrative data, analysed by geographical area, can tell us much about society. But...

Background It is well established that social exclusion is a key social determinant of health; however, such association between social exclusion and health outcomes among older people remain a relatively under-researched area. This paper explores the effects of four dimensions of social exclusion on self-rated health and depression among older peo...

Science is a cumulative activity, a body of knowledge sedimented in its publications, which form the foundation for further activity. Some items attract more attention than others; some are largely ignored. This paper looks at a largely overlooked book – Statistical Geography – published by three US sociologists when geographers were launching thei...

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...

Much has been written about the polarization of the American electorate and its reflection in its legislatures, but less about its spatial polarization, which Bishop has argued has taken place in parallel with the ideological and behavioral polarization. The extent of that polarization can be assessed, he argues, by identifying the number of landsl...

Health inequalities continue to grow despite continuous policy intervention. Work, one domain of health inequalities, is often included as a component of social class rather than as a determinant in its own right. Many social class classifications are derived from occupation types, but there are other components within them that mean they may not b...

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....

Social exclusion is increasingly considered to be a multi-faceted concept involving more than simply material disadvantage among older people. The process of social exclusion may be driven by various factors and at different levels, including individual, household, group, community, country and global levels. Using data from the 2014 China Longitud...

Traditional studies of residential segregation use a descriptive index approach with predefined spatial units to report the degree of neighbourhood differentiation. We develop a model-based approach which explicitly includes spatial effects at multiple scales, recognising the complexity of the urban environment while simultaneously distinguishing s...

Many ecological- and individual-level analyses of voting behaviour use multiple regressions with a considerable number of independent variables but few discussions of their results pay any attention to the potential impact of inter-relationships among those independent variables—do they confound the regression parameters and hence their interpretat...

Deprived neighbourhoods have long been associated with poorer health outcomes. However, many quantitative studies have not evidenced the mechanisms through which place ‘gets under the skin’ to influence health. The increasing prevalence of biosocial data provides new opportunities to explore these mechanisms and incorporate them into models of cont...

In the large literature on the growing polarization of the American electorate and its representatives relatively little attention is paid to the spatial polarization of voters for the two parties at presidential elections. Bishop argued this has increased as the result of residential location decisions: Democratic Party supporters have increasingl...

Much has been written since the 2016 Brexit referendum regarding the divides within British society that the vote illustrated – including geographical divides – and their influence on the outcome of the 2017 general election. Focusing on England, this paper explores the extent and significance of those geographical divides at the 2016 referendum, a...

Small area health data are not always available on a consistent and robust routine basis across nations, necessitating the employment of small area estimation methods to generate local-scale data or the use of proxy measures. Geodemographic indicators are widely marketed as a potential proxy for many health indicators. This paper tests the extent t...

Although pioneering studies using statistical methods in geographical data analysis were published in the 1930s, it was only in the 1960s that their increasing use in human geography led to a claim that a ‘quantitative revolution’ had taken place. The widespread use of quantitative methods from then on was associated with changes in both disciplina...

see Blog http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/constituency-level-estimates/ Most opinion polls conducted during British general election campaigns report on each party’s estimated national vote share. Although of considerable interest, these data do not put the spotlight on the marginal seats, the constituencies targeted by the parties for in...

Most opinion polls conducted during British general election campaigns report on each party’s estimated national vote share. Although of considerable interest, these data do not put the spotlight on the marginal seats, the constituencies targeted by the parties for intensive canvassing; these are where the contest for a majority in the House of Com...

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...

There has been a growing appreciation that the processes generating urban residential segregation operate at multiple scales, stimulating innovations into the measurement of their outcomes. This paper applies a multi‐level modelling approach to that issue to the situation in Auckland, where multiple migration streams from both Pacific Island and As...

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...

Few studies of residential segregation in cities have directly addressed the issue of spatial scale, apart from noting that the traditional indices of segregation tend to be larger when calculated for small rather than large spatial units. That observation however ignores Duncan et al.’s (1961) explication that any measure of segregation at a fine-...

Background: The relative importance of individual and country-level factors influencing access to diagnosis and treatment for depression across the world is fairly unknown. Methods: We analysed cross-national data from the WHO World Health Surveys. Depression diagnosis and access to health care were ascertained using a structured interview. Logi...

In a recent paper Becker et al. have analysed the pattern of voting at the UK’s 2016 Referendum on membership of the EU, testing four hypotheses with a wide range of variables. Re-analysis of their data identifies a number of problems of confounding resulting from collinearity among the independent variables which create difficulties in interpretat...

Stata replication file for paper entitled "The Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort model: Why does it find the results that it finds?"

The rapid expansion in support for the Scottish National Party (SNP) between the 2010 and 2015 general elections substantially changed the country’s electoral geography, as again did its relative decline at the next election in 2017. At that last contest, however, the SNP won many seats with fewer than 40% of the votes cast, a situation very differ...

There has been a substantial switch in approaches to the study of British voting behaviour in recent decades, with much less attention being paid to individual voters’ social positions. This paper argues that such approaches can mis-represent the contexts within which voters are socialised and mobilised and are also technically problematic because...

Most studies of ethnic residential segregation recognise that occupational class is an important influence on the intensity of segregation of members of different ethnic groups, but are unable to explore variations in that intensity because of the lack of relevant data. Australian census data allow the class structure of different ancestry groups t...

Ethnic segregation, in both neighbourhoods and schools, is an issue regularly raised in the British media, usually associated with arguments that it is growing and generating an increasingly-divided society. Segregation in schools is often presented as particularly problematic, and as greater than neighbourhood segregation – with the implication th...

After a period of relative stability the United Kingdom’s electoral map changed markedly in the last decades of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first. The three most recent elections – in 2010, 2015 and 2017 – witnessed further very substantial change, in part reflecting changes to the party system and the geography of part...

Several commentators before and after the 2016 US presidential election claimed that it involved a “redrawing of the country’s electoral map”, which in the context of the Key/Pomper classification of elections suggested that it was a deviating election, and potentially a critical election heralding a realignment. Analysis of the geography of the re...

Traditional studies of residential segregation use a descriptive index approach with predefined spatial units to report the degree of neighbourhood differentiation. We develop a model-based approach which explicitly includes spatial effects at multiple scales, recognising the complexity of the urban environment while simultaneously distinguishing s...

Existing literature has examined the determinants of subjective well-being (SWB) in China from the social, economic and psychological perspectives. Very few studies explore the impacts of residential environment on SWB. Drawing on a large scale questionnaire survey in Beijing, this paper investigates the role of residential environment by decomposi...

Recent decades have seen substantial growth across many developed-world countries of right-wing populist political parties whose policies oppose immigration and multiculturalism as threats to the majority way of life there. These are exemplified in Australia by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, which was successful at elections there at the turn o...

This a reprint of https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225303362_People_Places_and_Regions_Exploring_the_Use_of_Multi-Level_Modelling_in_the_Analysis_of_Electoral_Data

Most models of immigrant minority enclave formation in cities represent their situation as relatively transient elements in urban residential mosaics. As minority group members become both economically integrated and socially-culturally assimilated into the host society, so they move away from the enclaves where they initially concentrated. Such sh...

Most of the analysis before the 2016 referendum on the UK’s continued membership of the European Union based on opinion polling data focused on which groups were more likely to support each of the two options, with less attention to the geography of that support – although some regions, especially London and Scotland, were expected to provide subst...

Most research into the role of gene-environment interactions in the etiology of obesity has taken environment to mean behaviours such as exercise and diet. While interesting, this is somewhat at odds with research into the social determinants of obesity, in which the focus has shifted away from individuals and behaviours to the types of wider obeso...

Background Trust is important for health at both the individual and societal level. Previous research using Western concepts of trust has shown that a high level of trust in society can positively affect individuals’ health; however, it has been found that the concepts and culture of trust in China are different from those in Western countries and...

Much quantitative behavioural social science – a great deal of it exploratory in nature – involves the analysis of multivariate contingency tables, usually deploying logistic binomial and multinomial regression models with no exploration of interaction effects, despite arguments that this should be a crucial element of the analysis. This paper buil...

There has been considerable debate regarding a hypothesis that the American electorate has become spatially more polarized over recent decades. Using a new method for measuring polarization, this paper evaluates that hypothesis regarding voting for the Democratic party’s presidential candidates at six elections since 1992, at three separate spatial...

Most studies of ethnic residential segregation that address the issue of spatial scale make it implicit – if not explicit – that segregation is greater at smaller than larger scales. Such studies, however, invariably measure segregation separately at those scales, and take no account of the fact that measures at the smaller scale necessarily incorp...

Much has been written in recent years about the claimed polarization of the U.S. electorate, with substantial differences as to whether there has been greater spatial polarization, at several geographical scales, over recent decades. To assess the veracity of those alternative views, a bespoke data set showing percentage support for the Democratic...

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...

The local media have recently carried a number of stories suggesting that Muslim ghettoes are developing in British cities – a claim also made about European cities more generally. Analysis of data from the 2001 and 2011 Censuses of England and Wales suggests that these representations are journalistic hyperbole: most British Muslims live in small...

The use of statistical modelling by researchers in all disciplines is growing in prominence. There is an increase in the availability and complexity of data sources, and an increase in the sophistication of statistical methods that can be used. For the novice practitioner of statistical modelling it can seem like you are stuck at the bottom of a mo...

This contribution focuses on the changing nature of party competition in the United Kingdom. They argue that party systems scholars too often treat national territories as homogeneous blocks, thereby overlooking the spatial variations that can substantially undermine generalizations that assume national uniformity. Among other things, their examina...

ABSTRCT Most studies of urban residential segregation analyse it at a single-scale only, usually the smallest for which relevant census data are available. Following a recent argument that such segregation is multiscalar, this paper reports on multilevel modelling of the segregation of 42 ancestral groups in Sydney, Australia, looking at its intens...

While various neighbourhood definitions, classification approaches and scales have been used for analysing housing market, there remains a lack of consensus on which classification is best suited. In this study we empirically evaluate two widely used classifications: the postcode and census geography by using all individual London house sales durin...

While various neighbourhood definitions, classification approaches and scales have been used for analysing housing market, there remains a lack of consensus on which classification is best suited. In this study we empirically evaluate two widely used classifications: the postcode and census geography by using all individual London house sales durin...

The increasing volume of available 'big data' contains great potential for public policy to be evidence-based - as long as they are properly analysed and fully appreciated. This paper examines a case where that did not happen, and as a consequence an ideological-driven policy change was supported by a poor analysis of the available data. Using the...

New policy frameworks are being formulated to promote health and well-being in Europe. Increasingly, policymakers are seeking a better understanding of the social determinants of health and well-being, in order to ensure that economic growth and development is met with social equity. At present, however, there is debate over the relative importance...

The melting-pot argument, whereby economically heterogeneous multi-cultural societies, characterised by high levels of immigration from a variety of origins, become more homogeneous over time, has attracted much attention, especially in North America.Australia has similarly experienced major waves of immigration from a wide range of cultural backgr...

At present, there is a debate over the relative importance and contribution of household income to well-being, and the link between economic growth, welfare, and well-being is not fully understood. We sought to examine how changes in contextual and individual income (spanning the Great Recession) are associated with changes in self-reported well-be...

Most world cities can now be characterized as multiethnic and multicultural in their population composition, and the residential patterning of their major component ethnic groups remains a topic of substantial research interest. Many studies of the degree of residential segregation of ethnic groups recognize that this is multiscalar in its composit...

Background There have been recent suggestions that the majority of cancers are caused by random cell mutations, as opposed to environmental and inheritable factors. We hypothesise that if this is the case, then there would be no geographical patterning to cancer mortality rates at the neighbourhood level. Our paper presents a test of this hypothesi...

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...

Two advanced modelling approaches, Multi-Level Models and Artificial Neural Networks are employed to model house prices. These approaches and the standard Hedonic Price Model are compared in terms of predictive accuracy, capability to capture location information, and their explanatory power. These models are applied to 2001-2013 house prices in th...

updated version at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260771330_Developing_multilevel_models_for_analysing_contextuality_heterogeneity_and_change_using_MLwiN_3_Volume_1_updated_March_2019_Volume_2_is_also_on_RGate *****The purpose of these volumes is to provide a thorough account on how to implement multilevel models from a social science p...

This paper develops a methodology for extending multilevel modelling to incorporate spatial interaction effects. The motivation is that classic multilevel models are not specifically spatial. Lower level units may be nested into higher level ones based on a geographical hierarchy (or a membership structure-for example, census zones into regions) bu...

Two advanced modelling approaches, Multi-Level Models and Artificial Neural Networks are employed to model house prices. These approaches and the standard Hedonic Price Model are compared in terms of predictive accuracy, capability to capture location information, and their explanatory power. These models are applied to 2001-2013 house prices in th...

Since the 1990s, multilevel models have become popular tools for looking at contextual effects upon health. However, the way that geography is incorporated into these models has received criticism due to somewhat arbitrary definitions of what counts as context, the models’ discrete and, arguably, aspatial view of geographical effects, and the lack...