Dr Richard Emsley 

Richard is a Research Fellow in biostatistics based in the Biostatistics Group, part of the Health Sciences Research Group at The University of Manchester, and is funded by an MRC Career Development Award in Biostatistics.  

Society Memberships

Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (Graduate statistician)

Fellow of the International Biometric Society (IBS)

Member of the International Society for Clinical Biostatistics

Committee Memberships

Chairman of the Royal Statistical Society Manchester Local Group (2009 - present)

Member of the British and Irish Region IBS Committee (2009 - 2012)

Member of the Steering Committee (IBS representative) for the International Year of Statistics 2013 (2011 - present)

Member of the International Programme Committee for International Biometric Conference 2014 (2011 - present)

Other Group Memberships and Roles

Secretary of the Mental Health Research Network Methodology Research Group (2006 - present)

Member of the Psychosis Research Partnership project (2010 - present)

British and Irish Region correspondent for Biometric Bulletin (2010 - present)

Inaugural member of the RSS Young Statisticians' Forum (2005 - 2007)

Associate Faculty member, Faculty 1000 (2009 - present)

Richard's research primarily involves the development of statistical methods for causal inference with applications to complex interventions, particularly in mental health research.  He is currently developing methods and associated Stata software for the analysis of mediation and moderation of treatment effects, and estimating causal effects in longitudinal studies with several intermediate variables. The work consists of analysing the results of several completed and ongoing randomised trials in mental health, particularly psychological treatment trials which pose some unique analytic challenges.  Secondary research interests include the application of causal inference methods in pharmacoepidemiology and routinely collected datasets (eHealth).  

A lay profile about this work is available on the MRC website.

Further details can be found in the following MRC Methodology Grant project pages:

• Estimating causal effects of complex interventions in longitudinal studies with intermediate variables
• Design and methods of explanatory (causal) analysis for randomised trials of complex interventions in mental health
• Designs and analysis for the evaluation and validation of social and psychological markers in randomised trials of complex interventions in mental health

Richard's thesis research implemented the use of double robust estimators of marginal structural models to assess for non-adherence in randomised trials.  In joint work with Mark Lunt, they have developed a Stata command (dr) which carries out the double robust procedure, which can be downloaded from the following website.

He co-ordinates the Causal Analysis Group, an interdisciplinary group of researchers within Health Methodology Research with a common interest in causal inference, and is a member of the Mental Health Research Network Methodology Research Group.  He is a member of the Psychosis Research Partnership project, funded by The Wellcome Trust, and led from the Institute of Psychiatry.

Richard currently supervisors two PhD students, and welcomes interest from potential PhD students interested in these research areas.

Design and analysis of randomised trials, with particular application to interventions in mental health research.

Statistical methodology for causal inference, including:

• The counterfactual or potential outcomes framework.
• Double robust estimation - theory and applications.
• Marginal structural models.
• Methods for adjusting for non-adherence in RCTs.
• Propensity score methods.
• Methods of assessing mediation and moderation.
• Instrumental variables and structural mean models.
• Principal stratification methods.

Richard is currently a tutor on the Fundamentals of Epidemiology and Biostatistics modules of the Masters in Public Health course.  He also contributes to the teaching of fourth-year undergraduate medical students.

He has also previously lectured and been module leader on the SPSS module on the Research Methods Programme in the School of Dentistry.

Richard graduated from the Victoria University of Manchester with a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics with Statistics in June 2003.  He was awarded an MRC Studentship to study for a PhD in the Biostatistics Group under the supervision of Professor Graham Dunn and Professor Andrew Pickles. The PhD entitled "Statistical Models of Selection and Causation" was completed in 2007.

He joined the staff of the Biostatistics Group and from October 2006 to September 2009 he worked as a Research Associate on an MRC Methodology Grant investigating the design and methods of analysis of trials of complex interventions in mental health. 

In October 2009, Richard was appointed as a Research Fellow after being awarded a 3 year MRC Career Development Award in Biostatistics to continue aspects of this research.  As part of this Award, he spent four months in 2011 as a visiting researcher at the Program on Causal Inference in the Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Harvard School of Public Health.

BSc (2003) Mathematics with Statistics, Victoria University of Manchester

PhD (2007) Medical Statistics, The University of Manchester

GradStat (2008)

Local Collaborators:

Professor Graham Dunn - Professor of Biomedical Statistics, Health Methodology Research

Professor Chris Roberts - Professor of Biostatistics, Health Methodology Research

Dr Mark Lunt - Senior Lecturer in Medical Statistics, AR UK Epidemiology Unit

Professor Christine Barrowclough - Professor of Clinical Psychology, School of Psychological Sciences

Professor Linda Davies - Professor of Health Economics, Health Methodology Research

Professor Jonathan Green - Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychiatry Research Group

Professor Alison Wearden - Professor of Health Psychology, School of Psychological Sciences

External Collaborators:

Professor Andrew Pickles - Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London

Mr Ian White - MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge

Professor Frank Windmeijer - University of Bristol

Professor Philippa Garety - Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London

Professor Jonathan Sterne - University of Bristol

Professor Garrett Fitzmaurice - Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University

Professor Tyler VanderWeele - Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University

Dr Patrick McElduff - Univeristy of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia

PhD Students:

Philip Foden (2011 - )

Emily Eisner (2011 - )