MRC 3 YEAR PHD STUDENTSHIP IN LIFE LONG HEALTH

This 3-year PhD project offers an exciting opportunity to undertake research into health across the life course and across generations.

Programme starts
September 2020

Modes and duration
Full time: 3 years

Stipend
2020/21 rates: to be confirmed.
Current rate for Inside London 2019/20 is £17,009

Application dates
Close: 20th May 2020 5pm

Location: London, Bloomsbury

Entry requirements
A first class or 2:1 UK Bachelor’s degree in an appropriate subject or international equivalent and a recognised Master’s degree with a merit or distinction award, or with equivalent research experience.

Eligibility
Please check the MRC website for eligibility requirements.

Overview

The MRC LHA is an interdisciplinary unit and our research combines rich biological, social and psychological data from across the life course to help us lead on discoveries into life course determinants of physical and mental function. LHA is offering a 3-year PhD project for an outstanding student in the specific research area detailed below. The project will also include cohorts and researchers from the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at UCL where 4 national cohort studies are based. This studentship offers the unique opportunity to train across these two multi-disciplinary departments at UCL.

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