Statistics & GIS
New Statistics and GIS blog articles will be published here when available.
You can also view our archive of Statistics and GIS blog articles (published pre-2020).

Visualisation of COVID-19 in Northern Ireland
Reading Time: < 1 minutes By Aaron McMurray & James Bamford This dashboard has been prepared by the Assembly Research and Information Service (RaISe) to visualise data describing the spread of COVID-19 in Northern Ireland. This dashboard is intended to

Alcohol-specific deaths in Northern Ireland
Reading Time: 5 minutes Overview The latest figures published by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) (February 2021) show that the number of alcohol-specific deaths in 2019 was the highest ever recorded, with 336 registered deaths linked

Foodbank distribution in Northern Ireland
Reading Time: < 1 minutes Foodbanks are an increasingly useful resource for many in Northern Ireland. They provide a valuable service to communities and are continually helping to feed those in need. An interactive mapping application has been developed which

Can surveys be supplemented and improved by social media based research? A case study of the Young Life & Times Survey
Reading Time: 4 minutes Sample opinion surveys are a well-established way to measure public opinion on contemporary affairs. However, the exponential growth of social media in the 21st century opens new possibilities in social research. This post considers the

Is it possible to socially distance on our beaches?
Reading Time: 2 minutes With many international travel restrictions still in place, more people than ever will be opting for ‘staycations’ in Northern Ireland. This article provides the results of a spatial analysis looking at whether social distancing is

The impact of COVID-19 on Northern Ireland
Reading Time: < 1 minutes By Keara McKay & Thomas Procter Our new visualisation based on figures and analysis published in the public domain by Ulster Bank, Danske Bank, NISRA, PSNI and Google Mobility Reports, looks at the potential impact

Ten reasons to be cautious about using R to support decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic
Reading Time: 9 minutes The risk is that a complicated number is released without context into a world that doesn’t know how to think about it. The ‘R number’ that most of us non-epidemiologists had never heard of

Where are we on the COVID-19 curve? (Update at 16 April 2020)
Reading Time: 2 minutes This is a follow-up to the recent blog article, ‘Where are we on the COVID-19 curve?. The previous article used three day averages for COVID-19 deaths to compare the positions of the UK and