Overview
What can local and national governments do to help people make healthier food choices?
This PhD will examine how the food environment can be changed through public health policy in order to improve diets and reduce obesity and diet-related disease. As part of a large, funded research programme we have an excellent opportunity to appoint a motivated and engaged PhD student to develop their knowledge and research skills on the topic of health psychology, public health nutrition and real-world behaviour.
About this opportunity
The PhD will use a combination of methods and generate evidence which will inform local and national public health policy in the UK. The PhD will have two main parts. First, the successful applicant will contribute to a new trial testing whether it is feasible for small out of home food businesses to adopt menu calorie labelling and what public health benefit this could have. This will involve learning about mixed methods approaches to research and then applying those skills to work with participants and food outlets in the local community. Second, the PhD will investigate how food advertising shapes eating behaviour, and how this might change if advertising is restricted. There will be the opportunity to contribute to a randomised controlled trial (RCT) investigating the impact of brand only food advertising and conduct experimental studies examining the psychological processes through which advertising may influence behaviour.
The PhD student will be encouraged to develop their own ideas and research studies alongside supportive academic supervisors. The position would be ideal for a psychology graduate with an interest in research that has potential to improve health and bring about real-world change. Relevant research experience is desirable. The supervisory team have an excellent record of supervising PhD students and helping early career researchers transition into a long-term research career.
This fully funded studentship is supported by a National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) programme which aims to understand how we can change the food environment to prevent diet-related disease and obesity. The studentship will be primarily based at the host institute (University of Liverpool). Students will be actively encouraged to engage with and learn from the collaborating institutes in the programme, including Oxford, City St George’s, and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Each studentship has a dedicated budget for personalised training, study visits and external placements, which we anticipate students will use during the studentship. Students will also become members of the NIHR academy (https://www.nihr.ac.uk/career-development/nihr-academy): a dedicated network to support their training and development as a researcher.