Log in
This case study concerns the research of Professor David Spiegelhalter on `funnel plot' methodology for comparing institutions. This system has now become the standard method within the National Health Service for comparing clinical outcomes, including hospital Trusts with apparently `outlying' mortality rates. In particular, mortality following children's heart surgery is analysed and presented using funnel plots, and Professor Spiegelhalter's work has been instrumental in handling high-profile cases such as surgery at Oxford Radcliffe Infirmary and Leeds General Infirmary.
The Cambridge-led Emerging Risk Factors Collaboration (ERFC) is a global consortium involving individual-participant data on 2.5 million participants from 130 cohort studies. The ERFC has helped optimise approaches to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk assessment by: 1) quantifying the incremental predictive value provided by assessment of risk factors 2) evaluating the independence of associations between risk factors and CVD and 3) addressing uncertainties related to the implementation of screening. ERFC publications on lipids, lipoproteins, and inflammation biomarkers have been cited by 9 guidelines published since 2010, including those of the European Society of Cardiology and the American Heart Association.
For about a decade, Professor Nick Bostrom and others have been pursuing research on what he calls `existential risk': this research deals with basic threats both to the quality of our future life and indeed to our having any future life at all. This work has had considerable impact on policy. Professor Bostrom has been invited to play a large number of advisory and consultation roles, to government departments and major insurance companies among many others. His work has also attracted a huge amount of attention among the wider public. He has been invited to give prestigious public lectures, and he has given many interviews on his ideas to the media - thereby contributing to the public awareness of the huge risks at stake.
RVC's Veterinary Epidemiology, Economics and Public Health team (VEEPH) has been at the forefront of applying and evaluating new techniques for modelling disease risk, for policy and decision makers to use in surveillance and control of animal and zoonotic infections. Application of their recommendations, including European `Commission Decision' legislation, is contributing to ensuring that Europe remains free from African swine fever (ASF). The status of FAO Reference Centre in Veterinary Epidemiology, awarded by the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation in 2012, recognises the RVC as a centre of excellence in this field and reinforces its role in guiding policies relating to animal health.
Research by Reimer Kühn (RK) and collaborators has produced a framework to study and quantify the influence of interactions on risk in complex systems, including default risk in economy-wide networks of financial exposures. This work has had impact on practitioners and professional services dealing with financial risk, including research groups at central banks, who — partly in response to the recent financial crisis — have adopted such network oriented approaches to analyse and quantify systemic risk. The Financial Stability Division at the Bank of England has, for instance, developed refined versions of the network-oriented models proposed by Kühn and collaborators to specifically assess risk in the British banking system.
Research carried out by Cairns (Maxwell Institute), Blake (Cass Business School) and Dowd (Nottingham, now Durham) in 2006 produced the `CBD' model for predicting future life expectancy. The CBD model and its extensions developed in 2009 by Cairns and collaborators have had a major impact on pensions and life industry risk management practices: multinational financial institutions [text removed for publication] and other stakeholders have relied on the CBD model to risk assess, price and execute financial deals [text removed for publication] since 2010. CBD is also used by risk management consultants to advise clients, is embedded in both open-source and commercial software, and is used by the UK's Pension Protection Fund to measure and manage longevity risk.
Lyme borrelliosis (LB) is on the increase with over 3000 clinically or serologically diagnosed cases/pa in the UK. Alerting the public to LB risk has to be balanced against encouraging or undermining countryside use for health and recreational benefits.
The reach and significance of impact was initially built into the research with end-user stakeholders involved in the study design, interpretation and application of the results to change public and organisations' risk communication practices.
End-user impact has been acknowledged in an independent Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) evaluation as well as a local authority tick awareness campaign.
Statistical modelling of storms by Professor David Stephenson and co-workers in the mathematics institute at the U. of Exeter, has improved the understanding and thereby the pricing of insurance risk due to European windstorms and tropical cyclones. Temporal clustering in these catastrophic natural hazards has been quantified using novel process-based statistical models, which have then been implemented by industry to improve insurance pricing, e.g. on the integrated financial platform used by Willis actuaries to provide a more reliable view of risk as required by EU solvency 2 regulation. This research has also raised awareness in the industry about storm clustering, and has stimulated significant improvements in the main vendor catastrophe models, which are the main tools used by insurance companies to price European windstorm insurance.
Research at the University of Manchester (UoM) has developed new approaches, methods and algorithms to improve the statistical confidentiality practices of data stewardship organisations (DSOs), such as the UK's Office for National Statistics. The research and its products have had significant impacts on data dissemination practice, both in the UK and internationally, and have been adopted by national statistical agencies, government departments and private companies. The primary beneficiaries of this work are DSOs, who are able to both disseminate useful data products, and protect respondent confidentiality more effectively. Secondary beneficiaries are respondents, whose confidentiality is better protected, and the research community, as without `gold standard' disclosure risk analysis, data holders can be overcautious.