Understanding the interaction between psychiatric morbidity and psychotropic medication use on cognitive decline

Identifying modifiable causes of dementia is crucial for its prevention. This project represents an opportunity to join our pharmacoepidemiology research group (https://www.uea.ac.uk/drug-safety-and-dementia/home) to work on improving our understanding of how psychiatric conditions and their treatment can influence the risk of future dementia.

Background and aim
Reducing dementia incidence is a public health priority, and it is important to identify common modifiable risk factors. Recently there has been a focus on the role of medication use in prevention or hastening of cognitive decline and dementia.
For example, the effects of long term benzodiazepine (BZD) use has come under scrutiny. Several studies have suggested that BZD use increases dementia risk, although findings are mixed. . BZD are prescribed for anxiety and insomnia, which also could increase dementia risk, and so the role of BZD might be an artefact of confounding by indication.
This project will disaggregate the cognitive effects of psychotropic medication and the psychiatric conditions for which they are used through secondary analysis of data from longitudinal studies.

Objectives
The project will be directed by the interests and expertise of the applicant, but will include:
• Review of literature to construct a theoretical model and specific hypotheses to be tested
• Survey of data from global longitudinal studies of ageing and appropriate statistical methodology
• Analyses to carefully identify the relative contributions of particular psychiatric morbidity and medication use or other non-pharmacological treatments to cognitive decline and dementia, and mediating or moderating factors.

Training and supervisory team
You will join an active pharmacoepidemiology team within the Health Promotion research group in the School of Health Sciences. Working with a multidisciplinary team including pharmacy, pharmacology, geriatric psychiatry and biostatistics you will learn statistical techniques for the analysis of longitudinal datasets. A comprehensive programme of training in transferrable research and professional skills is available.

Candidate
You will have an interest in using leading edge statistical methods to improving public health. This project would suit candidates with a background in statistics, psychology, pharmacy or a relevant medical or health science.

Applicants should apply by 31 May 2017 at the latest, however if a suitable application is received before this date the advert may be subject to early withdrawal