Overview
The obesogenic food environment has adversely affected population-level diets and contributed to the obesity epidemic in the UK. Policy interventions to change the food environment have been prioritised within national strategies to address obesity and diet-related diseases. This fully funded PhD will model the impacts of these “changing the food environment” interventions to inform future policy directions.
About this opportunity
What are the impacts of public health policy interventions aimed at changing food environments?
This fully funded PhD position will examine the impacts of public health policy interventions targeting the food environment in addressing obesity and diet-related illnesses. This PhD student will join the internationally recognised NCD Prevention and Food Policy Modelling Group and Theme at the Department of Public Health, Policy & Systems, whose work has shaped national and global prevention strategies through advanced population simulation modelling.
The PhD will develop their knowledge and research skills on public health nutrition, health policy, epidemiology, and simulation modelling to assess the population-level impacts of food-environment policy interventions, as well as the extent to which these policies may contribute to reducing health inequalities in the UK. The PhD will contribute to two main activities. First, the successful applicant will contribute to a local food intake survey to examine daily nutrient intake and understand the contributions of the out-of-home (OOH) and non-OOH sectors, as well as exposures to the obesogenic food environment. Second, the PhD students will use simulation models to quantify the effects of policy interventions aimed at improving the food environment. The PhD also offers substantial flexibility in choosing public health policy options (e.g., fiscal policy, food labelling, reformulation, policies affecting food availability and affordability) to be modelled. We encourage applicants to suggest policy interventions they are particularly interested in exploring during this PhD, as well as to check our previous studies to understand the type of policies that can be modelled.
Building on established IMPACT modelling approaches, the student will also analyse linked longitudinal data, nutritional survey data, risk factor trends, and disease trajectories to simulate the impacts of policy interventions on reducing disease burden and the associated future economic benefits. These models have previously informed WHO global sodium benchmarks, the redesign of the NHS Health Check, CMO reports, OECD analyses, and major national policy decisions. The PhD student will also be offered the opportunity to use other modelling approaches from our own group and collaborating institutes.
This funded PhD studentship is open to applicants with a strong quantitative background in a range of disciplines, including, but not limited to, public health, epidemiology, health psychology, data science, and demography. Relevant research experience and experience working with R software are desirable. Ideal candidates will also have a strong commitment to policy-relevant research and enthusiasm for tackling health inequalities through rigorous analytical and simulation modelling. The successful candidate will join a vibrant team with an excellent record of supervising PhD students, publishing in high-impact journals, and securing major funding (ERC, ESRC, NIHR, European Commission, NIH, Health Foundation).
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.
Further reading
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2016-013791
https://doi.org/10.1016/s2468-2667(23)00326-2
https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwaf333