Student-led proposals on Health and Wellbeing: systems-informed and/or community-based approaches to improving health & wellbeing

An exciting opportunity has arisen for a fully funded, interdisciplinary PhD studentship opportunity supported by the University of Stirling’s Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport. Funded by the University of Stirling, this studentship is designed to lead to a new programme of research in parallel with and beyond the PhD, thus providing excellent prospects of post-doctoral employment.

This studentship will be funded within the University of Stirling’s new Health and Wellbeing PhD cluster (https://www.stir.ac.uk/research/research-degrees/institute-for-advanced-studies-studentships/health-and-wellbeing/) which goes across university faculties. Health and wellbeing outcomes are best improved through a multi-faceted approach that takes account of the systems and communities in which those outcomes arise. Efforts to improve outcomes that operate only at the individual level, but do not take account of systems and communities, often fail, or work only for more advantaged groups, increasing health inequalities. Many of the most effective interventions to improve health and wellbeing outcomes are community-wide, whole population or ‘system-wide’ approaches such as changes in policy, regulation or law. For example, systems-based approaches to increasing physical activity must consider the influence of national and local policies and regulations, supportive environments, accessibility of programmes regardless of life stage or ability, financial sustainability of activities, and partnerships across sectors and with different communities. 

This studentship will support a student-led idea for a PhD project(s) focusing on a specific aspect of health and wellbeing where a community-based or systems-informed approach is needed. We are open to project proposals from students that broadly fit this theme and have the potential to lead to further impactful research building on the PhD.

Factors impacting on health and wellbeing among different population groups may include the social context, physical environment and infrastructure, community resources, health literacy, workforce competency, access to health/social care, and existing programmes and policies.

Settings may include: the home; health or social care; sport/exercise clubs or facilities; community groups/organisations; education; social prescribing networks, areas of multiple deprivation, commercial spaces, or the workplace.

Interventions may take a whole-population approach or target specific sectors (e.g. under-represented groups; a specific health condition; older adults) but should address systemic or community-drivers of health, rather than individual behaviour change.   Intergenerational and/or community-partnership approaches are welcome. The following examples are not definitive:

·      Mapping existing policy and practice and comparing this to successful systems nationally and internationally;

·      Working with stakeholders to determine the multiple local and national factors influencing a specific element of health and wellbeing and how they interact;

·      Designing and testing an intervention toolkit for a particular setting or sector of the population.

Sample project topics might be: 

·      Understanding how activities and policies promoting intergenerational interaction can support the adoption of digital health technologies

·      Identifying and developing policy options for enhancing digital health literacy and/or tackling health misinformation and disinformation.  

·      Taking a systems-based approach to exploring the interaction between environmental, technological and social factors and their role in improving health and well-being at home.  

·      Examining how active living initiatives can interact with local community and health/social care services to decrease social isolation and sedentary behaviour. 

Supervisors for student-led PhDs will be drawn from cluster members/management depending on the proposed topic.  All studentships will also have access to advice from the wider academic cluster and overseen by the cluster management team (Prof. Anna Whittaker, Dr. Rachel O’Donnell and Prof. Niamh Fitzgerald).