About
Dr Jamal Hossain is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Health Statistics in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton. He is an academic statistician specialising in the development and application of rigorous quantitative methods for health and population research.
His expertise includes longitudinal and multilevel modelling, measurement error and spatial uncertainty, psychometrics, quasi-experimental methods, and statistically robust and explainable AI/Machine Learning. He provides quantitative and methodological leadership across multidisciplinary research, including major NIHR-funded studies in health workforce, end-of-life care, cancer outcomes and patient-reported measures.
Dr Hossain welcomes research collaboration and postgraduate supervision enquiries in applied health statistics, statistical methodology, longitudinal and spatial analysis, psychometrics, and responsible AI/ML for health.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Applied health statistics, longitudinal and outcomes research
- Multilevel, longitudinal and quasi-experimental methods for health services and workforce research
- Measurement error, spatial uncertainty and privacy-preserving geospatial statistics
- Psychometrics, patient-reported outcomes/experience measures and quality-of-life research
- Robust, explainable and responsible AI/Machine Learning for health research
Current research
Dr Jamal Hossain’s research focuses on the development and application of rigorous statistical methods for complex health and population data, with three connected strands: applied health statistics and outcomes research; measurement error and spatial uncertainty; and statistically robust, explainable and responsible AI/Machine Learning for health.
In applied health statistics, Dr Hossain provides quantitative and methodological leadership across several multidisciplinary research programmes. He is a Co-Investigator and quantitative lead for Workstream 2 of the NIHR-funded PREDICT-NURSE study, developing the analytical framework for evaluating nurse staffing requirements and workforce outcomes using longitudinal, quasi-experimental and mixed-effects methods. He is also a Co-Investigator and lead statistician for the NIHR-funded QUINTET study, where he has led quantitative work using National Child Mortality Database data and contributes to the statistical strategy across subsequent work packages.
His work also includes psychometrics, patient-reported outcomes and quality-of-life research. He contributes statistical leadership to PREMAC 2, including the multi-site validation and psychometric strategy for a patient-reported experience measure in acute oncology, and to PACC 2, which is developing and evaluating a practical quality-of-life screening approach based on HORIZONS longitudinal evidence. He is also a Co-Investigator on the international EORTC QLQ-AYA30 field study, providing psychometric and statistical expertise in the assessment of health-related quality of life among adolescents and young adults with cancer.
A second strand of Dr Hossain’s research extends his doctoral work on statistical estimation and inference with aggregated and randomly displaced georeferenced data. He develops methods to address measurement error, spatial uncertainty and privacy-preserving perturbation in health and population datasets, including applications to Demographic and Health Survey data and other spatially referenced sources.
His third research strand examines statistically robust and explainable AI/ML for health research, including model transportability, fairness, validation and the role of statistical judgement when AI tools are used in research and education. This work complements his broader interest in ensuring that advanced analytical methods remain interpretable, reproducible and methodologically sound when applied to real-world health data.
Research projects
Active projects
Publications
Teaching
Dr Hossain’s teaching focuses on applied quantitative research methods for health and clinical researchers.
Key teaching areas:
- Applied quantitative research methods
- Regression and generalised linear models
- Multilevel and longitudinal data analysis
- Multivariate Analyses
- Psychometrics and measurement
- Survival analysis
- Quasi-experimental methods
- Statistical interpretation and critical appraisal
- Responsible use of AI and Machine Learning in health research
Current responsibilities:
- Module Lead, Applied Quantitative Research Methods (HLTH6194)
- Postgraduate teaching across quantitative and research-methods modules (HLTH6205, HLTH6200, HLTH6274, HLTH6225, HLTH6263)
- MSc dissertation supervision (HLTH6213)
- Doctoral co-supervision
- School-wide statistical and methodological support for PGT and PGR students
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Dr Jamal Hossain is a Senior Lecturer in Applied Health Statistics in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton. He is an academic statistician whose work integrates statistical methodology with applied health and population research. His expertise includes longitudinal and multilevel modelling, measurement error and spatial uncertainty, psychometrics, and statistically robust and explainable AI/Machine Learning.
Before joining the School of Health Sciences, Dr Hossain held research and teaching roles at the University of Southampton, including postdoctoral research fellow positions in Social Statistics and Demography and psychosocial cancer research. Earlier in his career, he was Lecturer and subsequently Assistant Professor in Applied Statistics at Bangladesh Agricultural University.
He holds a PhD in Social Statistics and Demography from the University of Southampton, an MSc and BSc (Hons) in Statistics with distinction, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the Royal Statistical Society. His academic distinctions include a Commonwealth Scholarship funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), recognition by the Royal Society through the UK Global Talent route, and the Prime Minister Gold Medal for achieving the highest undergraduate academic result in his Faculty at Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh.
Dr Hossain is an Academic Editor for PLOS ONE and an Honorary Research Associate at Bristol Medical School, University of Bristol. He also contributes as a peer reviewer for statistical and health-research journals. He is currently undertaking the MIT Applied AI and Data Science professional programme, further strengthening the integration of rigorous statistical thinking with contemporary AI and data-science methods in health research.
Prizes
- Prime Minister Gold Medal 2011 (2016)
- Asadul Kabir Gold Medal and Scholarship (2015)
- University of Southampton Local Recognition Scheme (2026)
- Aklima Anwar Trust Fund Scholarship (2008)
- Talent Pool Scholarship (2009)
- Commonwealth Scholarship (2019)