Dr Will Ball

Dr Will Ball

@wpball.com

Interested in working out how to reduce unfair and avoidable differences in health. Mostly youth mental health. Chancellor's Fellow at Robert Gordon University | Social Epidemiologist | Pro Cycling | Rstats | Causal Inference 🇮🇪🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🍉

3.2K followers 1.1K following2.6K posts

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I've had a bit of an influx of new followers this weekend. Welcome! I'm a Social Epidemiologist based in Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 I do research on young peoples mental health - mostly about how socioeconomic exposures cause inequity, but also working out how much better things could be in a fairer society.

To shreds you say?

NFL divisions are kind of a nonsense. The Packers (4 wins, 2 losses) are now 3rd in the NFC North. The Cowboys (2 wins, 4 losses), who they beat, are now 2nd in the NFC East.

Even seeing it just as a scheduling tool it's kind of bizarre from a sporting perspective. You play your division partners in 6 of your 17 regular season games (35%). Having a weaker division is a massive benefit.

Combining divisions or just getting rid of automatic progression for top placed teams in the division would help.

Both myself and Marianne Vos were born in 1987. Between us, we've won a combined 12 World Championships in 3 separate cycling disciplines.

Correction - 13! 8 x CX 3 x road 2 x gravel

Best result of this guy's career btw

Dr Will Ball@wpball.com

I love bike racing. So good!

I love bike racing. So good!

'No longer' There was no golden age where paper count was a useful metric.

Ran Blekhman@blekhman.bsky.social

We have to stop using "paper count" as a useful scientific metric. More writing output no longer means more knowledge gained www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

washingtonpost.comOne professor’s AI-assisted output: 200 papers and 14 books this yearAn online platform removed 257 papers written or co-written by the University of Chicago’s Nicholas Polson after other academics raised questions.

How many hours in total do we think it takes for 21.5k applications to be prepared? Can we think of better ways for scientists to spend their time?

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The only way to win the bike race is to go faster than everyone else. Solid strategy from Wout here.

Domestique@domestiquecycling.com

'I knew I had to go fast': 🇧🇪 Van Aert explains aggressive 🇪🇸 Vuelta time trial start 🗣️ “I have no regrets. I started off fast, but I knew I had to go fast to be able to go for the stage win. And then, in the last bit, I exploded a little bit.” 📰 www.domestiquecycling.com/en/news/i-kn... 📸 Cor Vos

9 to 5 is a working class anthem. Well done Dolly

Six of the ten hottest Tour de France stages on record happened this year. The average stage temperature was 29.4°C, nearly 3.5°C above the previous hottest edition in recent seasons. Link: willpball.substack.com/p/was-2026-t...

Yes, average speeds have gone up but that's not purely down to physiology. If it was possible to look at the distribution of speeds during the stages that would likely tell the true story - more time spent at higher speeds because the racing starts earlier & there are fewer soft breakaways.

road.cc@roadcc.bsky.social

Tadej Pogačar obliterated record after record on his way to a fifth career Tour de France title, in the fastest edition in the race’s history. But what do the peloton’s ever-increasing speeds mean for the sport, its safety, and its credibility?

road.ccIs the Tour de France becoming too fast?On Friday afternoon, amid the deafening roar of 600,000 fans packed on a sinuous mountain road, Tadej Pogačar broke one of professional cycling’s most renowned, notorious records: Marco Pantani’s Alpe...

I imagine top speeds where the danger is highest, e.g. flying down the side of a mountain or in a sprint finish, haven't actually changed all that much in recent years. The speed/safety conversation is misguided if you only look at average speeds for stages or the whole race.

Behind the scenes with the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony planning team. "Fuck it, let's just have a massive Tunnocks tea cake with sparklers"

Remember what happened last time? www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

independent.co.ukTunnock's teacake dancer could lose job after sick claimAmy McIntosh's bosses said they were "surprised" when they saw her

As much as I enjoy England and their coach/tactics being the reason for their loss, it seems a bit 'Brits at it again' behaviour to ignore that Argentina may have influenced the result somewhat too.

Irish and Scots fans can legitimately support Argentina because of Alexis Mac Allister right?

As this is unconsented, identifiable patient data being used for non-clinical purposes, surely they should be receiving a massive fine for this?

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Fitba aye?

Meet my new friend.

Up the Da!

Scottish Summer: wearing shorts in the rain.

Perfect weather for midges

Instead of funnelling yet more cash to tech companies who over promise and under-deliver, can we perhaps trying to reducing social and economic inequalities first?

This should be made available publicly as an official statistical ouput after each election as a matter of course.

Ballot Box Scotland@ballotbox.scot

There's also a link on that page to download a spreadsheet containing the full breakdown of results, for both votes, for every constituency, for every party. Isn't it absurd that (doesn't appear to be) available from any official source? Imagine I didn't exist and didn't put the legwork in!

Is there a more tainted phrase than 'actionable insights'?

What's the term for knowing an above average amount about a topic but nowhere near as much as true 'experts'?

Article submitted 🥳 Now to wait for the emails about inevitable mistakes I made in the formatting etc

Reasons to be cheerful in the Scottish elections. Reform + Cons have 2 fewer MSPs than Cons got in 2021 SNP + Greens have the same number of MSPs as they got in 2021 A majority for Independence supporting parties once again.

Alt text for the image: a @ballotbox.scot graph showing the number and share of MSPs 2026 vs 2021. 2026: Greens 15, SNP 58, LD 10, Lab 17, Cons 12, RUK 17 2021: Greens 10, SNP 63, LD 4, Lab 21, Cons 31

So far there's been a larger drop off (vs 2021) in regional list vote share for SNP than in the constituency vote. One interpretation of that is more people realising that an SNP list vote is next to worthless in the additional member system.

If you're interested in elections, nobody does it better than @ballotbox.scot

Ballot Box Scotland@ballotbox.scot

Excited to share the BBS results page for the 2026 Scottish Parliament election. True to form, there's going to be more data on here than you can shake a stick at, giving you the most in-depth rundown available anywhere! This will all update automatically throughout the day, so refresh often!

ballotbox.scot2026 Scottish Parliament Election ResultsQuick links: Seats Won and Count Progress Constituency Results Regional Results (by Constituency) Regional Results (by Region) Vote Swings by Constituency Whilst you wait for results, you can chec…

Vote (Green)! #DogsAtPollingPlaces

Pre-voting relaxation.

Tadej Pogačar's last 17 races days: 12 wins (+1 GC victory) including World & European Champs and 4 of the 5 monuments 2nd place at Paris-Roubaix and GP Montreal His worst finishing position was 6th in the Romandie prologue.

Petition to make it so that the originally named place comes up first when searching for weather forecasts, regardless of relative population size. Perth, Scotland before Perth, Australia!

My daughter (7) and I have been recording the height of a sunflower she's been growing. Here's the graph so far.

A cohort of epidemiologists.

Jonathan Peelle@jpeelle.bsky.social

Academic mass nouns? Wrong answers only. #academicsky

When you get the 'your grant application was unsuccessful' email, you get the rest of the day off right?

It's not bad when you get to see the Northern Lights on a semi-regular basis from your window.

Caveat: this one is pretty faint and it always looks better on a camera.

Ah cycling, never change. #E3 #Procycling

Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona doaibh. 🇮🇪☘️

I'm disappointed that Ireland didn't end up winning the Men's 6 Nations, but at least Henry Pollock didn't get the satisfaction of winning that game. 🇮🇪☘️

Quality game of rugby between two quality teams #IREvSCO #COYBIG The question remains though, will England lose out of spite to deny an Irish 6 Nations win, or simply lose because they are shite?

Forza Italia!

Hard defence on both sides of this game. Ireland a little flat in attack. Not sure Wales can keep this up mind. #IREvWAL