ARCH Actuarial Consulting - Analytics 2.17

Analytics can unveil hidden patterns in data, empowering organisations to make better-informed decisions. Appropriate analyses of existing datasets can yield insights into external conditions and internal processes, giving decision-makers a significant competitive edge.

Our detection theory methods discern between information-bearing patterns and “noise”, random patterns that distract from the real information.

The same datasets can further be used to create, test and validate predictive models. These are useful inputs for formulating strategies and drawing up informed business plans and interventions.

For those who wish to know more about their business or field of research but do not have appropriate data, we can assist in building suitable questionnaires and datasets.

In these ways ARCH Analytics aims to help researchers and business decision-makers develop a deeper understanding of their spheres of operation in order to take action with confidence.

Past publications of ARCH:

Since 2001 ARCH has been applying its statistical know-how and technical skills towards the design, analysis, reporting and journal publication of research data gathered by the broader scientific community, particularly in the field of public health research.

ARCH has been involved in the production of all three South African National Youth Risk Behaviour Surveys (YRBS), which produced nationally and provincially-representative datasets on the prevalence of behaviours that place South African high school learners at risk, and tracked changes in the prevalence of these behaviours over time. The project and its offshoots delivered the following:

• Prevalence statistics on the following health risk behaviours among youth: sexual behaviour, substance abuse, malnutrition, insufficient physical activity, violence, mental health, intentional and
unintentional injuries, and poor hygiene

• Baseline data for establishing the trends in behaviours that may develop over time

• Information for the development of health promotion and life skills programmes

• Information for policy regarding the health of out-of-school youth

• Information for the creation of health indices for the Monitoring Unit of the Office of the Presidency

Links to YRBS 2002:
http://www.mrc.ac.za/healthpromotion/YRBSpart1.pdf
http://www.mrc.ac.za/healthpromotion/YRBSpart2.pdf
http://www.mrc.ac.za/healthpromotion/YRBSpart3.pdf
http://www.mrc.ac.za/healthpromotion/YRBSpart4.pdf
http://www.mrc.ac.za/healthpromotion/YRBSpart5.pdf

Link to YRBS 2008:
http://www.mrc.ac.za/healthpromotion/yrbs_2008_final_report.pdf

Link to YRBS 2011:
http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/research-outputs/view/6874

The following publications can be accessed through Research Gate (http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Riyadh_Omardien/publications):

• Rapid increases in overweight and obesity among South African adolescents: comparison of data from the South African National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey in 2002 and 2008.

• Comparison of two school-based smoking prevention programs among South African high school students: results of a randomized trial.

• Underweight, overweight and obesity among South African adolescents: results of the 2002 National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey.

• Prevalence and correlates of substance use among high school students in South Africa and the United States.

• Sex differences in under and over nutrition among school-going Black teenagers in South Africa: an uneven nutrition trajectory.

• Are students in public high schools in South Africa physically active? Outcome of the 1st South African National Youth Risk Behaviour Survey.