Robert Grant
Senior Research Fellow in Quantitative Methods
St George's, University of London & Kingston University
My stats surgeries for postgrad students
Frequently asked questions about stats
Tips and tricks for data management
Welcome to my university website. I have collected here some resources developed initially for my students and colleagues, as well as my publications and some biographical information. If you find any of my own written material useful (or not) or have suggestions for improvement, please let me know.
Are you a postgraduate student at the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences? You can get my advice on your quantitative MSc/MRes/PhD projects at my Stats Surgeries from April to July. Follow this link for dates and details...
Forthcoming talks etc
23 May 2012, 13:00, Longitudinal statistics seminar series, Penrhyn Road campus, Kingston University. "Are there two types of attrition in cohort studies? - analysis of data from Whitehall II" with Gill Mein, Senior Lecturer in Rehabilitation.
Biography
I am a statistician based at the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences, a partnership between St George’s, University of London and Kingston University in South-west London, UK. I support faculty researchers on quantitative projects from design and bidding through to data analysis and writing for publication. I also teach statistics on the MRes in Clinical Practice course and occasional lectures across other MSc courses, usually around statistical inference, bias and confounding, and statistical software.
My own research interests are focussed on statistical methodology for imperfect data, particularly coarsened data, residual confounding and explicitly modelling human error in data.
I previously worked at the Royal College of Physicians of London analysing large clinical audit datasets on stroke, falls and bone health, back pain, depression screening in occupational health for NHS staff, carotid endarterectomy surgery, familial hypercholesterolaemia, and generic medical record-keeping standards. I was also part of the team commissioned by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to develop evidence-based clinical guidelines on various long-term conditions, which involved carrying out meta-analyses and giving statistical advice to colleagues doing systematic reviews and health economic modelling.
My first degree was in mathematics, followed by a diploma in statistics and an MSc from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, where my dissertation was entitled 'Alternative composite indicators for comparing hospitals on the quality of care received by inpatients following stroke'.
Current research projects
- Developing simple tools for creating animated graphs within Excel, Stata and R software
- A cohort study of the incidence of incontinence and its treatment following dementia in community-dwelling older people (with Prof Vari Drennan and Dr Irene Petersen of UCL)
- Trends in prescribing by nurses in England 2005-2010: a secondary analysis of administrative databases (with Prof Vari Drennan and Prof Ruth Harris)
- Understanding the relationships between psychosocial impacts of joint pain and therapeutic exercise (with Prof Mike Hurley)
- A survey of the readiness for work of newly-qualified nurses in London (with Prof Ruth Harris, Dr Ann Ooms and Sylvie Marshall-Lucette)
- An international study of the prevalence of domestic violence against women and men in Europe (DoVE) (with Dr Eleni Hatzidimitriadou and Anna Matczak)
- Predictors of attrition from the Whitehall II longitudinal cohort study (with Dr Gill Mein)
- Summarising cluster-level variance in multilevel multivariate data: comparing one- and two-step methods
- Pets Protecting People: investigating relationships between pet ownership, retirement, social activity, health and welbeing using the Whitehall II study (with Dr Gill Mein)
- A pilot study developing a prognostic scale with Princess Alice Hospice, Surrey
- Various applications of the OPQOL quality of life scale (with Prof Ann Bowling of Southampton)
- A mixed methods pilot study of professional competencies in integrated health and social care teams (with Prof Ray Jones)
- A mixed methods study of the role of physician assistants in primary care in the UK (with Mary Halter, Wilfred Carneiro and Prof Vari Drennan)
- Consultancy work with the Nursing and Midwifery Council
Organisations etc
- Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society
- Member of the International Biometrics Society
- Member of Radical Statistics
- Member of the Department of Health’s National Advisory Group on Clinical Audit and Confidential Enquiries (renewals group)