Recruitment: HPRU GI PhD Students

The HPRU GI are now recruiting for the next cohort of PhD Students.

Please see below the Project Title and Description for 3 PhD Positions within the HPRU GI. Applications close on Sunday 18th of April 2021 for all posts.

Investigating the spatio-temporal drivers of inequalities in gastrointestinal infections

The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown into stark relief the inequalities in infectious diseases experienced by communities in the UK, particularly in relation to socioeconomic deprivation and ethnicity. There are large difference in the burden of gastrointestinal infections between places in the UK. People, particularly children, living in more disadvantaged communities in the UK are more likely to be admitted to hospital with a gastrointestinal infection than people in more affluent areas. Resources available to tackle this problem are however limited. In recent years funding for local government environmental health services has been cut by 50%, from £320 million in 2010. These cuts have disproportionately affected more disadvantaged communities leading to reduced food control staff, food sampling and inspections. We do not fully understand why the burden of gastrointestinal infections is greater in these communities or how multiple factors such as housing, environment, travel, control measures, and health service use intersect with ethnicity and poverty to increase risk.

Syndromic surveillance is the near real-time collection, analysis and interpretation of ‘big data’, including healthcare reports e.g. NHS 111 calls and other associated sources of health-related information e.g. social media. Syndromic surveillance can provide timely information for action to provide early warning of seasonal outbreaks of infectious disease and situational awareness during incidents e.g. COVID-19. This PhD provides an exciting opportunity to enhance the public health response to community-based gastrointestinal (GI) infections, a common cause of illness in turn leading to economic and health care burden in the UK. The programme of study will initially focus on understanding the utility of existing syndromic surveillance systems for monitoring the GI pathogen activity in the community. This will particularly focus on the seasonal impact of community-based norovirus infections, which have a significant annual burden on the NHS. It will determine the sensitivity of these systems to aid the interpretation of both outbreaks and seasonally expected increases of GI disease. Furthermore, the student will explore the use of novel digital sources for opportunities to complement PHE’s current GI surveillance programme, exploring (availability and use of) sources of data such as over-the-counter drug sales, school absenteeism and social media.

This PhD provides an opportunity to work with a team internationally recognised for its syndromic surveillance work and research. The candidate will receive training in the analysis and interpretation of large public health datasets using a range of analytical and statistical techniques. The student will benefit from research training in statistical methods, data science and the use of statistical software. This PhD offers a great opportunity to gain research skills in epidemiological methods while working in an environment at PHE providing access to infectious disease experts and public health practitioners.

Candidates should have a good first degree (1st or 2:1) in a quantitative discipline e.g. data science, epidemiology, computer science, population health. A Master’s degree in a relevant discipline would be an advantage (but is not essential) and/or experience of public health, epidemiology and statistics. The PhD will be registered with the University of Liverpool however the candidate would be based at PHE Birmingham. The successful candidate will therefore need to travel frequently between these two sites for relevant training.

This project is funded by the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Gastrointestinal Infections at the University of Liverpool, a partnership with University of Warwick and Public Health England. We anticipate that studentships will start on the 1^st of October 2021.

For more information please see the advert: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/studentships/digital-data-gi-surveillance/

 

Investigating the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on gastrointestinal illness using advanced linked data systems

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of robust, integrated, and timely health data systems for monitoring infectious diseases in the community. To prevent and control gastrointestinal infections, public health services need to analyse data from many sources, including GPs, hospitals, laboratories and local authorities. Patient/citizen-reported information is important too, particularly as people share more of their experiences of gastrointestinal illness via social media. The Liverpool City Region has been at the forefront of COVID-19 testing, including community open-access testing for people without symptoms. These data have been incorporated together with COVID-19 vaccination data into a linked NHS, public health, and local authority data system for the 2.6m population of Cheshire and Merseyside – CIPHA (Combined Intelligence for Population Health Action, www.cipha.nhs.uk; the UK’s first Civic Data Cooperative, with extensive public involvement).

There is growing evidence that SARs-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 disease may manifest with gastrointestinal symptoms, with SARs-CoV-2 frequently found in stool of infected individuals for some time after onset of infection. Wastewater sampling for SARS-CoV-2 RNA has even been introduced in COVID-19 surveillance. It is hypothesised that SARS-CoV-2 may negatively affect gut health post-infection. Using our existing suite of linked datasets, this PhD will investigate acute and chronic gastrointestinal illness post-SARS-CoV-2 infection, using data-driven matched case-control studies. Furthermore, as COVID-19 vaccine rollout accelerates, the PhD will be able to examine gastrointestinal illness (COVID and non-COVID related), in COVID-19 vaccinated vs unvaccinated individuals over multiple seasons. The PhD project will also access novel civic data sources including school absenteeism and will consider the role of patient/citizen-driven data sources (including GP-record-access/personal health record apps and social media) to detect patterns of gastrointestinal disease that are currently invisible to public health services.

This PhD provides an opportunity to work within a multi-disciplinary team that is internationally recognised for health informatics, public health and infectious disease research. The successful candidate will gain research skills in data science, public health and infectious disease epidemiology, while working with infectious disease experts and public health practitioners in academia and PHE. The candidate will receive training in the analysis and interpretation of large public health datasets using a range of analytical and statistical techniques.

Candidates should have a good first degree (1st or 2:1) in a quantitative discipline e.g. data science, epidemiology, public health, bioinformatics, computer science, population health. A Master’s degree in a relevant discipline would be an advantage (but is not essential) and/or experience of public health, epidemiology and statistics. The PhD will be registered and based at the University of Liverpool. The successful candidate will also work closely with the PHE Syndromic Surveillance team based in Birmingham.

This project is funded by the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Gastrointestinal Infections at the University of Liverpool, a partnership with University of Warwick and Public Health England. We anticipate that studentships will start on the 1^st of October 2021.

For more information please see the advert:https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/studentships/sars-cov-2/