PhD Studentship in population health/epidemiology - understanding health and wellbeing within households

An exciting opportunity for a fully funded PhD Studentship is available as part of the Farr Institute @Scotland investment in health informatics research. The focus of the studentship will be on understanding health and wellbeing within households. Recent medical advances have allowed chronically ill children and adolescents to live longer and to reside at home in the care of their families rather than in a medical institution. Children, their parents and their siblings now have to adapt and cope with chronic illness as a constant factor in family life. The successful candidate will undertake a project examining connections between these potential sources of stress and how they affect the health and life of other members of the family. This project has been made possible by a number of exciting and internationally significant recent developments in the use of administrative health and social data for research in Scotland. This includes resources such as the Scottish Census which can be linked across a wide range of national health datasets to help us understand family and household contexts across the Scottish population. These resources offer great potential to increase our understanding of key factors originating within the family context that may be harmful to health and wellbeing. A key task for the project will be to drive forward the development of these resources with close assistance from colleagues in the Administrative Data Research Centre, the Farr Institute and the newly established Health Data Research UK (HDRUK) institute as well as research groups in the School of Geosciences including the centre for research on environment society and health (CRESH) and the population, health and place research group.

The successful candidates will have an undergraduate degree (at least 2:1) with a data analytical component from a discipline such as geography, medicine, public health, epidemiology, medical sociology. Experience of statistical data analytical techniques relevant to large-scale and complex social science or health datasets and relevant software packages (Stata, SPSS, SAS or R) is desirable. The precise design of both programmes of research will be developed jointly by the student and the project supervisors and progress towards completion of the PhD will be reviewed in accordance with established guidelines within the School of Geosciences. There is an expectation that the student will contribute substantial independent thinking with regard to the research design, research questions, methodology and analysis throughout the studentship, including preparing and writing results into academic publications where relevant. There will also be an expectation that the successful candidate will contribute actively within the wider research team.

Start date: To begin September/ October 2018

Informal enquiries to Professor Chris Dibben ([Email Address Removed]) and/or Dr Tom Clemens ([Email Address Removed] )

All applicants should apply online by clicking the apply link at the bottom of this page. Applicants should submit the following documentation through the University of Edinburgh online system; a recent CV, a cover letter explaining interest in the project and a completed Equal Opportunities Monitoring form (please contact [Email Address Removed] and we will send you this). We anticipate interviews will be held in the week commencing 20th August 2018. You will be notified by email whether you have been shortlisted for interview or not.