LIDA Societies x DSDP Seminar Series: Healthy Lifestyles & Early Help
LIDA: Societies have teamed up with the Data Scientist Development Programme to bring you a seminar series full of diverse topics within the field of Societies.
Thursday 26th January – 12noon -1pm
Hybrid - 11.09 / online
Speakers: Franks Feng, Olawale Ogundeji and Michael Baidu
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Talk 1: Modelling transitions in UK mobility patterns using aggregated mobile phone data
Speaker: Franks Feng
Abstract:
Using aggregated mobile phone data, my project focuses on analysing the public movement in the UK before, during and after the pandemic (2019-2021). Consumer data sources, such as that generated by mobile phones, can produce novel insights into mobility patterns and this project seeks to understand how such insights can contribute to policy challenges and complement traditional data sources.
Data variables include the date, origin-destination pairs of local authorities and the level of mobility between the origin and destination, as determined by the count of journeys. We are also working with various administrative datasets to understand both how patterns vary and to determine the representativeness of the data
Our findings so far, which are driven by data visualisation, indicate that:
-There is a clear divide between the North and South regions of the UK. Ongoing research is considering whether this is an artefact from the data collection process or whether it is demonstrating a real effect (e.g. due to economic inequality).
-London shows a busier travel trend compared with the rest of the regions.
Future research will also consider different ways to visualise and model the data in order to draw insights.
Talk 2: The carbon footprint of food at the University of Leeds
Speaker: Olawale Ogundeji
Abstract:
A sustainable environment through the food supply chain requires an excellent understanding of
the food system and effective communication of its environmental impacts. As food production
accounts for a quarter of greenhouse gases emission, diet changes, as a behavioural strategy, can
minimise the environmental impacts of these gases.
The project scopes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the University of Leeds through diet
changes and the food supply chain by implementing front-of-pack ecolabels on catering food
products to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030.
This research study will estimate the carbon footprint of food items in terms of their nutritional
units – measure the environmental impacts of each of these products while taking into account
the nutrients they provide. The project will improve existing work in a new environment to build
a baseline carbon emission metric to stimulate behavioural shifts, influence future purchasing
choices, and consequently assist the university in meeting its net-zero goal by 2030.
The project is designed to measure food’s overall and product-level carbon footprints at the
University of Leeds, develop a tool for carbon labelling of food products, and offer
recommendations. The outcome of this project would help the university to gain a deeper
understanding of its food supply chain, catering of its food and how recipes can be designed to
reduce carbon footprints.
Talk 3: Educational Engagement and Early Help Analytics
Speaker: Michael Baidu
Abstract:
Seventy-one percent of children living in poverty in the Leeds and Bradford area are exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) of serious mental health disorders, domestic violence, and substance abuse in their home. These factors make children more at risk for disengaging with education. School census data from the Leeds City Council (LCC) has been used to investigate the factors associated with children’s disengagement with education as well as the key tools required for the identification and provision of early help to children at risk of ACEs. Following an earlier work from the LCC, disengagement was quantified using the following absence indicators: Persistence absence (defined as missing 10 percent or more of all possible sessions in a school year), Truancy (which refers to unauthorised persistent absence) and Severe absence (which corresponds to missing 50 percent or more of all possible sessions). Neighbourhood violence has been identified in earlier works as the main ACE associated with chronic absenteeism. Leeds consistently recorded the highest number of violence committed by school age children, above the average of the entire West Yorkshire during the 2017-2021 period. In the attempt to quantify the extent to which neighbourhood violence affects educational engagement, it was found that, 72 percent of the violence offenders had ever identified Special Education Need provision. Seventy-five percent serious violence offenders had been suspended at least once in their educational history, while 50 percent had a complex school history. Disengagement with education has also significantly increased after the COVID 19 pandemic as there was 8.8% increase in persistent absence, 3.1% increase in truancy and 1.7% increase in severe absence. A statistical model and a dashboard for the real time monitoring and prediction of educational disengagement might assist in the early identification and support, which might, in turn, reduce children’s involvement in antisocial and deviant behaviour.