LIDA Seminar Series 6th October 2016

For this event we welcomed Dr Sandy Tubeuf, Associate Professor of Health Economics at the Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, from the University of Leeds. Dr Tubeuf's talk was titled "Evaluating neighbourhood based policies using secondary data: the Neighbourhood Management Pathfinder Programme". We also welcomed our second speaker Dr Stephen Clark from the School of Geography at the University of Leeds. Dr Clark's talk was titled "A spatial microsimulation using England and Wales Cencus and English Longitudinal Study of Aging (ELSA) data to estimate sub-regional morbidities for the over 50 year olds".

Our main speaker for this event, Professor Robert Tanton, we welcomed from The University of Canberra in Australia. Professor Tanton works in the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM), and his presentation was titled "Measuring and Modelling spatial disadvantage".

Programme

15:15: Registration LIDA reception

15:30: Dr Sandy Tubeuf – Evaluating neighbourhood based policies using secondary data: the Neighbourhood Management Pathfinder Programme.

This research contributes to methodological developments in policy evaluation via natural experiments. We evaluated one local initiative, the Pathfinder Programme using secondary data that were not collected for this purpose. Using the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) grid reference data and intervened areas postcodes, we identified the intervention areas before and after the programme along with appropriate matched control areas, and estimated the causal effects of the programme on broad range of individual outcomes. We used a difference-in-difference approach and compared changes in the intervention and control areas across 8 years. The research showed that the pathfinder programme had positive effects on individuals’ neighbourhood problems and reported housing problems, including reductions in reported street noise, pollution, crime and vandalism, and house condensation and damp walls. These outcomes were the initially targeted outcomes of the intervention and were found to be short-lived as they vanished after four years. However, the pathfinder programme had long term significant and positive impact on the frequency of talking to neighbours, which was not an intended outcome.

15:45: Dr Stephen Clark – A spatial microsimulation using England and Wales Census and English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) data to estimate sub-regional morbidities for the over 50 year olds

The ageing of our society is inevitable. This presents us with a series of challenges, affecting not just those who enter this life stage but also those who support such people, either directly through caring responsibilities or in directly through the provision state support. Health is one such area of anticipated increased support. In this talk I will present an overview of my PhD research in this area, looking at the prevalences for CVD, diabetes and respiratory illness in each English local authority. I will cover the estimation of a base year population using spatial microsimulation and the predictions of future prevalence from a dynamic microsimulation model. This model predicts falling prevalence counts and rates for CVD, stable counts but falling rates for respiratory illness and both rising counts and rates for diabetes. These results are placed in the context of trends in lifestyle changes and pharmaceutic interventions.

16:00: Prof Robert Tanton – Measuring and Modelling spatial disadvantage

Identifying disadvantaged areas is important as the types and levels of different services provided compared to advantaged areas will be different. Disadvantaged areas will need to have good schools funded by the Government, with a focus on encouraging students to participate in classes, as this encouragement may not be provided at home. Services like food pantries and Government welfare offices may also need to be based in these communities, as disadvantaged families will find it difficult to travel to these services. Transport networks also need to be designed to go through these areas, with cheap and available transport, as private cars may not be affordable, or may simply be old and unreliable.

This seminar will look at how modelling can be used to identify spatial disadvantage. I will start by looking at the method of spatial microsimulation to identify spatial disadvantage in terms of one indicator, like poverty rates. I will then extend this to look at how output from spatial microsimulation models can be used to help build indexes of disadvantage, which provide much more complex multi-dimensional measures of disadvantage rather than one dimensional measures like poverty rates. I will then show how combining other types of modelling with spatial microsimulation modelling can provide more complex estimates, like where the impact of a terms of trade change (estimated from a CGE model) occurs, and where disadvantaged areas may be in the future (so adding a projection element to the model). I will also show how Tax/Transfer microsimulation modelling can be combined with spatial microsimulation modelling to identify the impact of a policy change on disadvantage in an area.

17:00: Refreshments and networking

18:00: Close