News
Vacancy: Post Doctoral Research Associate at Durham University
A 12-month fixed-term full time Postdoctoral Research Associate (PDRA) position is available at the Department of Psychology at Durham University.
The Role
The successful candidate will join the research project ‘The public’s role in public health – understanding and negotiating public support for policies designed to improve population health’ led by Dr Milica Vasiljevic and funded by the NIHR School for Public Health Research. The project aims to examine the best ways in which to inform a local and national debate about how we can increase public support for the most effective and equitable dietary and active travel health-behaviour change policies and interventions.
Overview of the whole project: To date there is limited knowledge on what policies are acceptable to whom and why. Furthermore, there is limited activity to engage the population and to create a public debate about options to protect population health with the aim to build support for more health promoting and protecting policies.
Using a variety of mixed-methods (i.e., qualitative interviews, quantitative pilot studies to inform the creation of Discrete Choice Experiments [DCEs], and Discrete Choice Experiments [DCEs]) the project will examine different policies (e.g., taxes, bans on sales of high fat and high sugar snacks at checkouts etc.) pertaining to food and transport (in particular active travel) to model what features of the different policies the public supports, and importantly how such support may vary between members of different demographic groups. At the end of the project we will consider the learnings that arise from the different work-packages to develop an emerging framework that could in future be used to predict public acceptability / support for various policy options aimed at improving population health.
The project team and the role of this post-doc: The PDRA will work as part of a multidisciplinary team of Psychologists, Health Economists, Sociologists, Epidemiologists, and Public Health Practitioners based across the universities of Durham, Newcastle, Bristol, Cambridge, LSHTM, Imperial and UCL.
The candidate will work on the quantitative part of the project, and will contribute to the development of the emerging framework at the end of the project. The successful candidate will have a strong academic track-record, including experience in designing, carrying out, analysing and interpreting high quality quantitative experimental research studies. Experience or knowledge of Discrete Choice Experiments (DCEs) is not essential, but desirable.
Expectations: The successful applicant will be expected to co-design, run and analyse novel research protocols and studies, with input and assistance from the PI, co-Is and academic and practitioner collaborators as appropriate. The successful applicant will also be expected to prepare results for publication and present them to academic audiences at conferences, as well as (as appropriate) to non-academic audiences.
Additional information
Department of Psychology
Grade 7: £33,797 – £40,322 per annum
Fixed Term – Full Time
Contract Duration: 12 months
Contracted Hours per Week: 35
Closing Date: 07-Mar-2021, 11:59:00 PM
For informal enquiries please contact milica.vasiljevic@durham.ac.uk
Last modified: Wed, 24 Feb 2021 12:56:05 GMT
