Epidemiology of selected non-communicable diseases in the Eastern Mediterranean Region/Middle East.

This PhD project offers an exciting opportunity for a candidate from the Eastern Mediterranean region to join our dynamic global health epidemiology research group at the Centre for Population Health Sciences of The University of Edinburgh. Our centre is a newly established World Health Organization Collaborative Centre for Human Population Research and Training. Our global health team has been conducting studies to better understand the patterns and trends of selected infectious and non-communicable diseases at a country, regional and global level by systematically reviewing epidemiological literature in different languages (e.g. Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish). Many of our studies are published in high impact journals such as The Lancet and PLoS Medicine. Our findings have been contributed to the improvement the WHO’s estimates of various disease burdens. The Eastern Mediterranean Region has stood out to be an area of considerable epidemiological information gap in our work. A reason for this could be our limited capacity to tap into such information in the local languages and contexts. We are therefore inviting an enthusiastic and capable candidate with the relevant language and disciplinary background to join us in our endeavor to fill in some of the information gaps.

The first part of the project will involve an assessment of the availability and quality of epidemiological information sources in Farsi and/or Arabic for the purpose of disease estimates. This will be followed by a series of systematic reviews and analyses into selected non-communicable diseases in the local and international databases.

The successful candidate will have the following qualities:
· Fluency in written Farsi and/or Arabic
· Understanding of the availability of epidemiological databases and information in the Eastern Mediterranean region
· Undergraduate/postgraduate degree in a health related area (preferably, epidemiology, medical sciences, medical informatics, or bio-statistics) from a university in the Eastern Mediterranean region
· Ability to apply advanced statistical analyses, including meta-analysis, meta-regression and epidemiological modeling
· Fluency in written English
· Critical thinking
· Proven ability to conduct independent research
· Proven ability to be a team player
· Willingness to travel to the Eastern Mediterranean region for the research

Preferred qualities:
· Experience working within the health-related projects in the Eastern Mediterranean region
· Desire to stay in Edinburgh and continue to contribute to our team beyond the PhD
· Understanding Bayesian methods.

All interested candidates should send their CV, academic transcripts, and a covering letter: [Email Address Removed]