Ian R. Hambleton, BA, MSc, PhD

Role: Professor, Biostatistics
Email: ian.hambleton@cavehill.uwi.edu

Ian Hambleton is a Professor of Biostatistics at the George Alleyne Chronic Disease Research Centre, CaIHR. He has a degree in Mathematics (Brunel), a Masters in Medical Statistics (Reading) and a Doctorate in Statistical Epidemiology (Southampton). He has worked for over 20 years in Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean, for the UK Medical Research Council, The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and UWI (Jamaica and Barbados).

Ian has expertise in the design, conduct, and analysis of RCTs, population surveys, and longitudinal studies. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles on a range of chronic and infectious diseases. With colleagues, he is currently organizing analyses for the Barbados National Registry for non-communicable diseases, and for ‘The Health of the Nation’ - a new national survey to assess Barbadian health. He is co-applicant on an NIH award to better understand health inequities in the Caribbean. He began his career in sickle cell disease and still maintains links with groups working in haemoglobinopathies.

Ian is statistical editor for the Genetic Disorders group of the Cochrane Collaboration, and provides statistical support to the Caribbean Cochrane Centre. He works with the International Diabetes Federation, developing methodology for reporting global diabetes prevalence, and is a statistical advisor to UNICEF.

Research interests

Methods interests:

  • Small area statistics for understanding neighbourhood inequalities with application to Small Island Developing States (SIDS)
  • Methodology for reporting inequalities through the life course,
  • System science for understanding chronic disease,
  • Systematic review methodologies
  • Understanding data quality in open data sources (eg. mortality statistics).
  • Regulatory framework for data management of Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs)
  • Data audits and data curation.
  • Methods for tracking participants, for minimising loss to follow-up, and for coping with missing data

Public health interests:

  • Health inequality
  • Chronic disease burden,
  • NCDs and particular issues facing small island developing states (sids) – the interface between chronic disease, sids and climate change descendants (such as vulnerability and food security),
  • Natural experiments for assessing public health and policy interventions.
  • Sickle-cell disease & Haemoglobinopathies.
  • Health Informatics
  • Data quality in medical research

Selected publications

  • Hambleton IR, Jeyaseelan S, Howitt C, Sobers-Grannum N, Hennis AJ, Wilks RJ, Harris EN, MacLeish M, Sullivan LW; US Caribbean Alliance for Health Disparities Research Group. Cause-of-death disparities in the African diaspora: exploring differences among shared-heritage populations. Am J Public Health. 2015 Jul;105 Suppl 3:S491-8. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2015.302676.
  • Hambleton IR, Howitt C, Jeyaseelan S, Murphy MM, Hennis AJ, Wilks R, Harris EN, MacLeish M, Sullivan L; U.S. Caribbean Alliance for Health Disparities Research Group (USCAHDR). Trends in Longevity in the Americas: Disparities in Life Expectancy in Women and Men, 1965-2010. PLoS One. 2015 Jun 19;10(6):e0129778. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0129778.
  • Hambleton IR, Jonnalagadda R, Davis CR, Fraser HS, Chaturvedi N, Hennis AJ. All-cause mortality after diabetes-related amputation in Barbados: a prospective case-control study. Diabetes Care. 2009 Feb;32(2):306-7.
  • Watson-Jones D, Weiss HA, Rusizoka M, Changalucha J, Baisley K, Mugeye K, Tanton C, Ross D, Everett D, Clayton T, Balira R, Knight L, Hambleton I, Le Goff J, Belec L, Hayes R. Effect of Herpes Simplex Suppression on Incidence of HIV among Women in Tanzania. N Engl J Med. 2008; 358(15):1560-71
  • Serjeant GR, Higgs DR, Hambleton IR. Elderly survivors with homozygous sickle cell disease. N Engl J Med. 2007 Feb 8;356(6):642-3.
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