This is the official website of SNTL,

the statistical consulting part of Nick Longford's professional activities.

Established: January 2001. Web presence: June 2004.


Email: sntlnick @ SNTL . co . uk

On 30th November 2021, I left the job at School of Public Health,
Imperial College London, UK

and reverted to operating as a statistical consultant (self-employed),
with a principal engagement

in the Data Science Division, Marks and Spencer plc, London, UK
(from 4th January 2021 till 31st December 2022)

Since July 2024 I am a 'contingent worker' (external appointment)
at the Mohn Centre for Child Health and Wellbeing (Imperial College London)


BOOKS:

  • Appeared in March 2021: Statistics for Making Decisions (Chapman and Hall/CRC, 2021).

    NTL
    With the motto:
    The rightful place of the hypothesis test is in a science museum, right next to the steam engine.


    Statistical Studies of Income, Poverty and Inequality in Europe: Computing and Graphics in R using EU-SILC
    (Chapman and Hall/CRC, New York, 2014).

    Supporting materials (R code)


    Statistical Decision Theory
    (Springer-Verlag, New York, 2013).

    Supporting materials (R code)


    Supporting materials for Studying Human Populations.An Advanced Course in Statistics
    (Springer-Verlag, New York, 2008).


    SNTL business - areas of expertise:

  • causal inference in observational studies (the potential outcomes framework)

  • decision theory

  • small-area estimation

  • incomplete (missing) data

  • longitudinal analysis

  • statistical modelling (including addressing model uncertainty)

  • statistical computing and graphics in R; computing in Snowflake

  • analysis of very large datasets (including surveys) and data mining
    - using prior information and incorporating the consequences of errors

  • design of surveys and other studies

  • clinical trials (beyond hypothesis testing)

  • being an expert witness (civil and criminal law)



    Applications in:

  • clinical medicine, epidemiology & biostatistics

  • technical (statistical and data-based related) audit

  • local and central government statistics

  • statistics in civil and criminal law

  • data science in the service of children and young people
    realising the potential of the Whole Systems Integrated Care database


    • Business perspective

    Statistics is the business and science of making intelligent decisions
    in the presence of uncertainty and constrained by limited resources

    It is a study of how decisions should be made,
    as opposed to how they tend to be made.

    My mission is to serve the best interests of my clients, as regards data-
    related information and decisions, just like the medical profession serves
    the best interests of the patients as regards their health and welfare,
    and the legal profession serves the best interests of their clients
    as regards the civil and criminal law.

    A photo and motto


    • Recent publications

    Mortality analysed by propensity score matching: an application to national neonatal audit.
    Brazilian Journal of Biometrics 41, 311-331, 2023.

    Relaxed calibration of survey weights.
    Survey Methodology 50, 261-285, 2024.

    To appear

    Statistical balancing as an unconstrained optimisation problem.
    In Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics 67.


    Current projects

    Causal analysis with treatments on a continuum.
    Dose- and exposure-response analysis of observational studies.

    Health and education and social care of children and young people in Northwest London
    (work at the Mohn Centre for Chidren's Health and Wellbeing, Imperial College London).

    The full research potential of a linked collection administrative databases.


    Recent whereabouts

    4th Congress of Polish Statistics; Warsaw, Poland, July 2024.

    9th Conference on Survey Sampling in Economic and Social Research Katowice, Poland, December 2024.


    Further back in time (and details)


    February 2025