Modelling the conditions for emergent infections in livestock and humans in Tanzania

Start date: 1st April 2016
Stipend: £14,057

Tanzania, like most countries in sub-Saharan Africa, is experiencing big changes. Urbanisation is increasing demand for milk and meat products and bringing pastoral communities closer to urban centres. Meanwhile, land-use pressures have resulted in the encroachment of pastoral livestock into wildlife areas.

Other changes include the effects of market pricing and the intensification of livestock production systems. These are being driven by national policy, through the national livestock policy and international trade (especially with Kenya). The aim of this 3.5 year PhD project is to contribute to a large programme of research aimed at understanding these changes (see http://livestocklivelihoodsandhealth.org/) through the mathematical and statistical modelling of data on the epidemiological and human factors driving the transmission of livestock and zoonotic diseases. For this project, we seek a highly motivated student interested in inter-disciplinary approaches who is either quantitatively trained with an interest in zoonotic and livestock disease epidemiology or ecology, or with a background in disease epidemiology or ecology and good evidence of quantitative ability (computational, statistical and/or mathematical).

This project incorporates a 50/50 time split between Glasgow and Tanzania, allowing the student to both undertake quantitative training and develop an understanding of the underlying systems from which the disease data are derived. For the appropriate and interested student, there is the possibility of a field component working with an experienced epidemiological team. This project will be led by Louise Matthews and Rowland Kao at the University of Glasgow working within the Boyd Orr Centre for Population and Ecosystem Health, together with a team including at least one supervisor in Tanzania. This studentship is funded under the ZELS studentship programme (www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/bahcm/zels-as/)