Professor Kelvyn Jones
FBA, FLSW, FAcSS, CGeogs, PhD, BSc
Expertise
Quantitative modeling of social science data with complex structure through multilevel models; especially in relation to change and health. For his distinctive contributions see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvyn_Jones
Current positions
Emeritus Professor
School of Geographical Sciences
Contact
Press and media
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Biography
I am Professor of Quantitative Human Geography at Bristol (2001-), being Head of the School 2005-9. Previously, I held a personal chair at the University of Portsmouth. I am a Fellow of the British Academy (elected 2016 to Sociology, Demography and Social Statistics (Section 4) and to Anthropology and Geography (Section 3)). The citation reads ‘Kelvyn Jones is an internationally leading quantitative social scientist. He has made major contributions to the analysis and interpretation of large and complex data sets in a broad field of quantitative social sciences, including geography, and is extremely active in promoting training in quantitative analysis in the social sciences.”
I am also an Academician of the Social Sciences (elected2008), and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales(2013) and featured in the 20 most cited human geographers of the last half century in 2009. Served as panel member for Geography and Environmental Studies for two Research Assessment Exercises. I led the RAE/REF subsmission for the School for two assessments when we were placed in first position.
In 2013 I was awarded the Murchison Award, the senior award of the Royal Geographical Society for 'publications on quantitative geography'. I was awarded by graduating students the A G Hoare School Teaching Prize in that year.
I have run advanced workshops in multilevel modeling for many years at the University of Essex Summer School and at the Swiss Summer School for Social Science Methods and at the University Of Leuven(LSTAT).
I was married to Tina who died in 2020 and we have one son, Alex who is an FRCA.
Research interests
My most highly cited journal papers can be found here: ISI; while additionally books and book chapters can be found here: Google Scholar. I am in the process of putting all my publications so that they are downloadable (where allowed) from ResearchGate.
I research in three main areas
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Geography of health: here are I am concerned with geographical inequalities in mortality in advanced economies; I have been following the HALS cohort of 9003 individuals since 1985 and examining the nature of place effects, particularly the mortality of 'poor people in poor places'; a series of review papers (in Progress in Human Geography) and a number of empirical papers (eg in Social Science and Medicine) were influential in initiating a wide ranging debate on the meaning of place effects in health; on a broader front, a book that I co-authored ( Health, Disease and Society) is widely credited withhelping to re-fashioning the sub-discipline of 'medical geography' into the 'geography of health';
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Research design; this work focuses on how we can develop evidence-based research in non-experimental studies; this interest permeates all my work but can be explicitly seen in the joint-authored book Epidemiology, and in recent contributions to Theory and Methods in Social Research (edited by Somekh and Lewin); I am also interested in cluster randomised trials.
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Realistically complex modelling: this research work focuses on the quantitative analysis of social-science data with complex structure particularly when there are many levels of analysis. Thus, we can have repeated measures (at level 1) on individuals (at level 2) nested with households (level 3), nested within neighbourhoods (level 4). This is the work that I am currently best known for. I have a long association with the Centre for Multilevel Modelling; and I was the joint Director of the Centre. My distinctive contribution has been to apply these multilevel models in novel ways, quite widely in the social sciences so in addition to publishing in top journals in geography (eg Economic Geography, Geographical Analysis) there are papers in social medicine (British Medical Journal, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health), on mental health (British Journal of Psychiatry, American Journal of Epidemiology), and in political science (American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science), as well is in journals that focus on methodology (Journal of the Royal Statistical Society). In this conxtet I regularly use and teach the MLwiN software and I have contributed to the manual.
Projects and supervisions
Research projects
The use of interactive electronic-books in the teaching and application of modern, quantitative social science methods
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
The importance of the statistically trained researcher in the social sciences has increased dramatically over recent years, with a huge range of opportunities for exploration and understanding that have risen…Managing organisational unit
School of EducationDates
01/10/2013 to 30/09/2017
LEMMA 3: Longitudinal Effects, Multilevel Modelling and Applications
Role
Co-Investigator
Description
LEMMA 3 is a node in the second phase of the ESRC-funded National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM). The mission of NCRM is to provide a strategic focal point for…Managing organisational unit
School of EducationDates
01/10/2011 to 30/09/2014
RCUK FELLOWSHIP
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Geographical SciencesDates
01/10/2007 to 01/10/2012
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR MULTILEVEL METHODOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS
Principal Investigator
Managing organisational unit
School of Geographical SciencesDates
01/06/2005 to 01/10/2008
LEMMA - Learning Environment for Multilevel Methodology and Applications
Principal Investigator
Role
Co-Principal Investigator
Description
LEMMA 1 was a node in the first phase of the ESRC-funded National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM). The mission of NCRM is to provide a strategic focal point…Managing organisational unit
School of EducationDates
01/06/2005 to 01/01/2009
Publications
Selected publications
01/01/2010The Practice of Quantitative Methods, Chapter 23
Research Methods in the Social Sciences
Modelling residential segregation as unevenness and clustering: A multilevel modelling approach incorporating spatial dependence and tackling the MAUP
Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science
Fixed and random effects models
Quality and Quantity
Explaining Fixed Effects: Random Effects modelling of Time-Series Cross-Sectional and Panel Data
Political Science Research and Methods
Another 'futile quest'? A simulation study of Yang and Land's Hierarchical Age-Period-Cohort model
Demographic Research
Recent publications
26/06/2021Quantitative geography III: Future challenges and challenging futures
Progress in Human Geography
Ageing and cohort trajectories in mental ill-health: An exploration using multilevel models
PLoS ONE
Measuring neighbourhood social dimensions using individual responses
Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology
The Geographical Polarization of the American Electorate
GeoJournal
When does geography matter most? Age-specific geographical effects in the patterning of, and relationship between, mental wellbeing and mental illness
Health and Place