Research area
Project: Mental health, weight, health related behaviours and their impact on healthy ageing across generations
Supervisors: Praveetha Patalay, Richard Silverwood, Alun Hughes
The top ten health conditions that contribute to global disease burden in high income countries include depression and anxiety (common mental health disorders), alcohol and smoking linked conditions (alcohol use disorders, lung cancers and heart disease) and diabetes. Notably, these are all non-communicable conditions which have early life risk factors that include mental health, adiposity and substance use (nicotine, alcohol).
This PhD project aims to use data from a series of national birth cohort studies (born in 1946, 1958 and 1970) to investigate: 1) whether the associations between mental health, body mass index and health related behaviours (such as smoking and drinking alcohol) across the life course is changing across cohorts, 2) whether the changes in the age of onset and extent of co-occurrence of these health outcomes is associated with health, especially co-occurring conditions (multimorbidity) and quality of life at older ages.
Who might be interested in this PhD: someone interested in population health and how trends in different population health indicators are relevant for understanding health and disease. A background in epidemiology, statistics, psychology, demography, or any other relevant discipline would be desirable. This is a quantitative project using existing birth cohort study data, so an interest/aptitude in data analysis and advanced quantitative skills will be expected.
How to Apply
Please submit applications to jane.johnson@ucl.ac.uk along with the relevant documents (detailed below and in the application form guidance notes).
If you have any questions about the project or would like to discuss the project further, please contact Dr. Praveetha Patalay p.patalay@ucl.ac.uk
Application Form
Reference Form
Please submit:
- Completed Application Form
- Two academic references using the Reference Form (sent from referees' email addresses)
- Your up-to-date CV