News & Latest 06.05.2020

PhD Studentships in the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) East of England Health Economics and Prioritisation Theme

Two funded PhD studentships for early-stage researchers to conduct applied research relevant to health economics and prioritisation in health and social care

The two studentships are funded jointly by the National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) East of England and the University of East Anglia.

Location: University of  East Anglia, Health Economics Group of the Norwich Medical School 

Eligibility and Funding for: UK Students and EU Students only

Funding amount: These studentships are funded for 3 years and comprise Home/EU fees and a stipend of £15,285 per annum.

Application deadline: 5 June 2020

Start date: October 2020

Duration: 3 years (full time)

The studentships will fund outstanding early-stage researchers to conduct applied research relevant to health economics and prioritisation in health and social care (H&SC). Each studentship is an exciting career opportunity for an ambitious researcher keen to develop as a future leader in health economics as applied to H&SC research.

PhD research and proposed programmes of work must align with the NIHR ARC EoE HEP Theme’s work. HEP aims to inform choices about the implementation of H&SC services and interventions, by providing high quality evidence on costs and benefits. We work with other research themes in the ARC EoE to undertake research on a wide range of services and interventions, prioritising those that, when translated into practice, have the potential to lead to improvements in the health and well-being of patients, the population as a whole, and the sustainability of the H&SC system.

Core work:

  • Developing, sharing and applying innovative methods relating to economic evaluation and preference-based outcome valuation;
  • Better use of existing data: working with the ARC EoE’s Population Evidence and Data Science theme to utilise existing data sources for evaluating services and informing decision-making;
  • Prioritisation: measuring public preferences around health and social care priorities to inform decision-making.

Project Description 

Candidates with a research topic that fits within these areas or more broadly within the ARC HEP theme will be considered. Projects will be considered a priority if they also:

  • Develop links between the HEP Theme and at least one other ARC Theme. Our themes are: Ageing and Multimorbidity; Population Evidence and Data Science; Inclusive Involvement in Research for Practice; Mental Health over the Life course; Palliative and End of Life Care;  Prevention and Early Detection; and/or
  • Involve one or more of the ARC’s four ‘populations in focus’ (Great Yarmouth and Waveney, Peterborough and Fenland, Stevenage and Thurrock). These are communities where people experience inequalities of income and health and have, until now, had few opportunities to benefit from applied research to improve their access to services.

Some suggested, but not exhaustive, potential topic areas include:

  • Understanding and optimising routinely collected social care data for use in health economic research
  • Valuing social care outcomes as a benefit in health and social care research
  • Developing condition specific preference-based measures of health-related quality of life in (e.g.) heart failure
  • Costs and benefits of prioritising prevention and early detection of malnutrition
  • Exploring value-based pricing in mental health for prioritising implementation of new interventions/services, treatment pathways and policy planning
  • Investigating hospice funding, its impact on the NHS and exploring long-term funding options
  • Using existing datasets to understand associations between risk factors, and health and social care utilisation in (e.g.) Norfolk, and how these relationships might be impacted
  • Modelling treatment pathways in (e.g.) Parkinson’s disease to explore potential costs and benefits of the most promising interventions not yet implemented

Further information can be found here*

*Please note that the FindAPhD advert is incorrect – these PhDs ARE available.*

To apply, please go to the UEA website, noting the reference “WHITTYJU20ARCHEP”.

Please contact adam.wagner@uea.ac.uk if you have any queries