PhD Studentship in Health Analytics and Modelling

Eligibility criteria

Applicants must hold, or expect to obtain before the start of the PhD, a relevant Master’s Degree awarded with good grades, or have a combination of relevant qualifications and experience which demonstrates equivalent ability and attainment.

Applicants must meet the criteria for Home fees to be eligible to apply. Your fee status is determined in accordance with the Fee Assessment Policy of Imperial College and regulations defined by the UK Government. 

Application process

Applicants should submit a complete CV and cover letter detailing the project(s) of interest and suggested research approaches to kb.davis@imperial.ac.uk with the subject line “PhD Studentships Health Analytics and Modelling HPRU”. Successful candidates will complete formal registration after interview.

Additional information

Title of PhD project - The impact of deprivation-induced environmental, viral, behavioural, phyco-social exposures on human health. Brief description of project / theme This PhD project will investigate the impact of deprivation-induced environmental, viral, behavioural, phyco-social exposures on human health with focus on chronic conditions, including cancers and cardio-respiratory, and cognitive outcomes. Taking an exposome approach, we will investigate social gradients in (co-occurring and correlated) exposures including , air pollution, noise, living environment (including green and blue space proximity, urban density, food environments, and area-level deprivation), behaviours along with history of viral infection to characterise (complex and multi-faceted) exposure profiles associated with social adversity, and will explore the geographical distribution of these profiles. This research will examine how these profiles affect health outcomes, including incident chronic conditions and multimorbidity. The definition of deprivation will not only rely on established metrics but will also leverage the data to come up with a reproducible and interpretable definition of ‘socio-environmental deprivation’ affecting health. The data will also offer the possibility to investigate the biological signatures of exposure profiles, through multiple omics data available in the REACT study and their joint and marginal effects on health. The REACT study includes data on more than 2mio individuals with detailed socio-demographic information and exposure to SARS CoV-2. Multiomics data have been generated in over 10K participants including genome sequencing, proteomics and metabolomics. Data on environmental exposures will be obtained through linkage to existing surfaces generated by partners, and already accessible. REACT data will be made available, subject to submission of access request. The project will use modern computational methodologies, including deep learning-based clustering to identify patterns of comorbidities and spatiotemporal models to assess the impacts of exposures. Mediation analysis will further disentangle causal pathways, revealing how environmental and social determinants collectively shape health disparities. By linking data from the REACT study with existing exposure surfaces, this research aims to advance our understanding of the biological and geographical dimensions of health inequities along the social gradient, providing evidence for targeted public health interventions.

Contact

If you have any additional questions, please contact us at kb.davis@imperial.ac.uk.