Dr L Sedda, Dr C Jewell, Dr B Rowlingson
No more applications being accepted
Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
About the Project
Infectious disease co-occurrence is poorly understood in terms of both geography and time. As many as 30% of infectious diseases may result from co-infections, climbing as high as 80% in certain human populations. Understanding the ecology and transmission of co-occurring pathogens within populations is therefore crucial to designing suitable disease prevention programmes, though methods to gain insights into host-pathogen-environment interactions are currently underdeveloped.
Aims
1. To determine why pathogens co-occur in some places but not others;
2. To predict spatiotemporal disease risk from co-occurring pathogens;
3. To determine how co-occurring pathogens interact, and exploit this for interventions.
The project will begin with animal diseases obtained from the freely available OIE database, since no (open) human health database has the same level of detail in the geographic and epidemiological characteristics of outbreaks. However, the methods will be equally applicable to human diseases should suitable data become available.
Output
Methodology: Biologically plausible models of disease transmission risk, incorporating pathogen co-occurrence, dynamical relationships between pathogens, hosts and the environment and their uncertainties. The model development is the key element to reach aims 1, 2 and 3.
Epidemiology: Quantitative mapping of risks currently faced by the global health community focused toward intervention policy: outbreak investigation, pathogen discovery strategy, risk mapping and assessment, and disease surveillance, management and mitigation (aim 3).
Skills: This project will suit a student with a Master degree in Epidemiology, Bayesian statistics, biostatistics or ecological modelling. The student will develop a high level of skill in spatial epidemiology and computation. They will develop collaborations with public national and international health organisations (e.g. PHE, APHA, WHO, OIE). As such, the successful completion of this PhD will provide the opportunity for the student to work in a wide range of academic, public and private health organisations world-wide.
Informal enquires about the project should be made directly to Dr Luigi Sedda. Applications are made by completing an application for PhD Statistics and Epidemiology October 2017 through our online application system. Closing date, midnight 3rd April 2017.
References
1 Vaumourin, E., et al. The importance of multiparasitism: examining the consequences of co-infections for human and animal health. Parasite Vector 8, doi:10.1186/S13071-015-1167-9 (2015).
2 Pollock, L. J. et al. Understanding co-occurrence by modelling species simultaneously with a Joint Species Distribution Model. Methods Ecol Evol 5, doi:10.1111/2041-210X.12180 (2014).
Animal Health Organisation (OIE). WAHID, World Animal Health Information System. (http://www.oie.int/wahis_2/public/wahid.php/Wahidhome/Home) (2017).