Aggregating multi-domain wellbeing across individuals

BACKGROUND
This PhD studentship is offered as part of the SIPHER (Systems science in Public Health and Health Economics Research) consortium. Preventing ill health related to the “social determinants of health” requires well-coordinated policies across many sectors. SIPHER is a major investment by the UK Prevention Research Partnership, which brings together scientists across six universities, three government partners at local, regional and national level, and ten practice partner organisations. SIPHER will deliver novel evidence of the costs and benefits of the complex, interlinked and long-term consequences of policy decisions. For further details of SIPHER see https://sipher.ac.uk/.

The PhD will be part of Work Stream 6 of the SIPHER consortium. This Work Stream concerns social valuations of cross-sectoral outcomes and equity implications, to provide insight into how people value different policy outcomes (e.g. increased income versus improved health) and different distributions of outcomes (increased total income versus increased income inequality).

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The proposed PhD will explore the following questions:
1. Do relevant decision makers have different inequality aversion for overall wellbeing and the domain of wellbeing, and for what reason(s)?
2. Do relevant decision makers value the two allocation possibilities above differently, and, if so, for what reason(s)?
3. Are the differences between the individualistic approach and the domain-specific approach large enough to affect actual policy decisions?

METHODS
- Review of the theoretical and the empirical literatures on multi-domain social welfare, inequality aversion, and multi-objective optimisation.
- Analysis of existing data from the SIPHER project on domain-specific inequality aversion [Q1]
- Stated preference study on across-domain inequality aversion [Q2]
- Case studies: adapt the SIPHER multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) framework for cross-sectoral public health policy action to account for the individualistic and the domain-specific approaches and conduct a series of what-if analyses to map out the conditions under which the two approaches will result in inconsistent ranking of policies [Q3]

KEY READING
Abásolo I, Tsuchiya A (2013) Is more health always better for society? Exploring public preferences that violate monotonicity. Theory and decision, 74(4), 539-563.
Decancq K, Lugo MA (2012), Inequality of wellbeing: A multidimensional approach, Economica. 79(316): 721-746.
Fischer GR, Kipouros T, Savill AM (2014). Multi-objective optimisation of horizontal axis wind turbine structure and energy production using aerofoil and blade properties as design variables. Renewable Energy. 62:506–515.
Meier P, Purshouse R, et al, (2019) The SIPHER Consortium: Introducing the new UK hub for systems science in public health and health economic research. Wellcome Open Research, 4:174.
Purshouse RC, Deb K, et al, (2014). A review of hybrid evolutionary multiple criteria decision making methods. IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation, 2014: 1147-1154

Applicants should consult further details at www.sipher.ac.uk/PhDOpportunities prior to applying.

For an informal conversation about this opportunity, please contact Aki Tsuchiya ([Email Address Removed]) or Robin Purshouse ([Email Address Removed]).

Applications will close on 11th May 2020 and interviews are expected to be held week commencing the 25th May 2020.

Entry Requirements:
Candidates must hold, or be on track to be awarded, a postgraduate degree in a quantitative subject such as economics, quantitative psychology, quantitative sociology, or engineering.

Candidates must also have a willingness to engage in an interdisciplinary research environment and to learn new skills including basic qualitative research methods.


How to apply:
Please complete a University Postgraduate Research Application form available here: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/postgraduate/phd/apply/applying

Please clearly state the title of the studentship (Aggregating multi-domain wellbeing across individuals), the prospective main supervisor (Prof. Aki Tsuchiya) and select ScHARR as the department.

You will also need to include:
• A statement (up to 750 words) explaining why you wish to apply for this studentship and what specific skills and experience you have that make you a suitable candidate.
• A copy of your CV.