PhD Studentship at the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre on Modelling Environmental Risk for Dementia

Dementia is a major global public health crisis. This project builds on previous work investigating geographical variation in dementia risk which highlighted the importance of environmental risk.[1-3] There is a growing literature implicating the importance of the environment in dementia aetiology but the mechanisms remain unclear.[4] This project will investigate this further using the Lothian Birth Cohorts (LBC) of 1921 and 1936.

The student will integrate time series environmental data with dementia outcomes identifying geographical areas associated with increased risk using Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation (INLA).[5, 6] Since this will be computationally intensive, the student will evaluate the most efficient computational approaches, perhaps including developing an R package.

The post holder will be supervised by Dr Tom Russ (Co-Director of Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre). Co-supervisors will include Dr Finn Lindgren, (School of Mathematics, University of Edinburgh) and the PI Professor John Starr (Director of the Alzheimer Scotland Dementia Research Centre.

ELIGIBILITY
To be eligible for a full award (stipend and fees):

The successful applicant will have a very good undergraduate degree (at least 2:1) or have relevant comparable experience
Demonstrate a keen interest in the aetiology of dementia
Have an excellent grounding in quantitative research methods and statistics

To apply visit: https://edin.ac/2MnOWcK

Queries regarding application process: Mrs Denise Munro: [Email Address Removed]


REFERENCES

1. Russ, T.C., et al., Geographical variation in dementia: examining the role of environmental factors in Sweden and Scotland. Epidemiology, 2015. 26(2): p. 263-70.

2. Russ, T.C., et al., Geographical Variation in Dementia Mortality in Italy, New Zealand, and Chile: The Impact of Latitude, Vitamin D, and Air Pollution. Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord, 2016. 42(1-2): p. 31-41.

3. Russ, T.C., et al., Geographical variation in dementia: systematic review with meta-analysis. Int J Epidemiol, 2012. 41(4): p. 1012-32.

4. Killin, L.O., et al., Environmental risk factors for dementia: a systematic review. BMC Geriatr, 2016. 16(1): p. 175.

5. Lindgren, F. and H. Rue, Bayesian spatial modelling with R-INLA. Journal of Statistical Software, 2015. 63(19).

6. Rue, H., et al., Bayesian computing with INLA: a review. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application, 2017. 4: p. 395-421.