Programme Leader: Professor Catherine Hewitt

Overview

The MPhil/PhD in Health Sciences is definitely an chance to build up your quest interests and skills inside a center of excellence for health, and within research groups building the worldwide evidence base for health insurance and healthcare.

The programmes are 3 years full-time or six years part-here we are at a PhD, and 2 years full-time or 4 years part-here we are at an MPhil. They are made to build up your academic excellence inside a multidisciplinary context.

We’ll equip you to definitely undertake, analyse and evaluate health research. Simultaneously you will find the versatility to tailor college to pursue your personal research interests and get the skills you’ll need for the future career. We support a variety of different methodological and disciplinary perspectives. The most popular theme may be the rigour from the methodology and the purpose of contributing to evidence base for health insurance and healthcare.

We request you to give a brief research outline together with your application and provide some symbol of the study group within which your quest interest belongs.

PhD Student Profiles

PhD student Nicole Valtorta has won NIHR funding on her doctorate fellowship within the Department, that will concentrate on loneliness and isolation in seniors.

Sadie Bell is presently undertaking a complete-time PhD going through the acceptability and ease of access of reproductive health services within the United kingdom to in excess of 50s.

Training

A lot of students are initially registered for his or her intended award aim (ie either MPhil or PhD). However, PhD students are just provisionally registered for his or her PhD. There’s a confirmation of registration procedure that is a progression requirement that must definitely be effectively completed when the student would be to progress around the PhD.

In your research degree, you’ll plan a topic-specific ‘research training programme’ together with your supervisor to satisfy your own personal needs and also the core training needs from the Department. All MPhil/PhD students are often needed to show skills within the following areas, normally if you take these modules:

Further training, generally equal to a minimum of an additional 40 credits, is going to be agreed together with your academic supervisor and programme leader. The majority of our MPhil and PhD students stick to the multidisciplinary approach from the MSc in Applied Health Research programme.

The College offers a number of further possibilities for that training and private growth and development of research students, helping you to take full advantage of your college experience. Workshops include communication skills, career management and practicing postgraduate students who educate. Other learning programmes provide possibilities to boost skills and develop new interests.

Postgraduates Who Educate (PGWT)

The Department can occasionally offer compensated teaching possibilities to Postgraduate Research Students (PGRS) or, in exceptional cases, to experienced Masters students.

Teaching vacancies over the College are marketed periodically, usually at the beginning of each academic year. Click the links for more information and current vacancies. You may even desire to view current rates of purchase PGWT.

While teaching experience is really a helpful accessory for your CV like a research student, we attempt to make sure that teaching responsibilities don’t impinge by yourself research or hinder the conclusion of the good thesis. The College requires all PGR wanting to pursue compensated teaching possibilities to attempt the ‘Introduction to Learning and Teaching ‘ training program, area of the training and support provided to postgraduate students. All PGWT should demonstrate an adequate standard of British communication skills appropriate towards the role. More information about PGWT training are available here .

Typically, candidates who meet the requirements is going to be interviewed, but this doesn’t be certain that teaching work is going to be offered. For more details about postraduate teaching inside the Department please contact the PGWT coordinator, Cath Hewitt: catherine.hewitt@you are able to.ac.united kingdom .

Supervision

You will get academic support from the supervisor along with a Thesis Advisory Panel (TAP). Supervisors are matched to students by research interests and expertise and also the TAP is going to be selected from your supervisor to supply specialist methodological advice or general guidance, in addition to feedback on the caliber of the study and written work. Your supervisor and also the TAP will give you support during the period of your duration of study.

Preference in admission will be presented to students whose suggested research fits inside the research styles from the Department and also the research programmes from the academic staff.

You ought to be certain to name a possible supervisor in your form. For information on academic staff and research interests, in addition to research teams and leaders, see Research within the Department. the Department’s Research Staff List. and Research Links along with other Departments .

Funding

More details about charges and funding are available around the central College Postgraduate charges and funding pages .

Research Proposals

Current Guidelines for Research Proposals

• The proposal shouldn’t exceed 1,000 words.
• The proposal will include no under 6 relevant references but a maximum of 10.
• The proposal should condition the hypothesis you want to research why it’s important and/or original
• The proposal should condition clearly as well as in as numerous details as you possibly can the methodology that will be utilized to meet up with the aims from the study additionally towards the expected impact from the project.
• But please be aware also
  • we’re not expecting at present stage a complete and final statement of the research intentions that will bind you carefully on your duration of study here
  • it won’t lead towards the formal assessment of the work at You are able to.
• The objective of this exercise is you as well as your eventual supervisor can ensure that you and also the College are very well-matched to each other and may make progress, through discussion and correspondence, towards defining your quest subject before you begin your training program here.

Listed here are types of effective research proposals received through the Department of Health Sciences. (Below might not follow all the guidelines above because the guidelines have lately been upgraded).

Project 1 (Omara Dogar)

Pakistan is facing a dual burden of TB and tobacco use. Treating smoking dependence is an efficient method of addressing a substantial proportion of premature mortality and morbidity due to tobacco use within TB patients. To deal with this public ailment inside a high TB and tobacco burdened low-middle earnings country, the requirement for definitive experimental studies to evaluate the very best and occasional-cost quitting smoking interventions centered on improving both quitting smoking and TB outcomes, is eminent.

Like a initial step, I aim to check whether,
“Could it be achievable to do a randomised controlled trial assessing the potency of behavioural support quitting smoking intervention in TB patients to attain continuous abstinence and improved TB outcomes when compared with usual care?”
The work develops a cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT), that we lately completed (detailed in next section), that assessed the potency of quitting smoking interventions in TB suspects in Pakistan.

My aim is to do a number of scholarly work that addresses a few of the fundamental uncertainties in transporting out an effort of behavioural support quitting smoking intervention in TB patients and inform its design. This is the very first trial on the planet assessing the results of giving up smoking among TB patients on their own TB treatment endpoints and intermediate TB outcomes for example sputum smear conversion occasions which will have adequate power and sturdiness to supply definitive evidence for policy and finest practice.

I propound to get this done by:

• Transporting out a literature review to recognize individuals outcomes (clinical and non-clinical) in TB patients that could be most responsive to quitting smoking and the best way of assessing these outcomes
• A little scale pilot study in TB patients to tell the record needs for example, sample size, recruitment rates, and attrition rates
• Research into the outcomes of the pilot
• Map the intervention over the conduct change theories and methods recognized as evidence-based for quitting smoking and focus the extent that they are helpful in TB patients in Pakistan context.
• Critical evaluation from the methods used in this pilot and encounters acquired
• The output would be the design and protocol of the definitive trial which is more precise considering the findings in the pilot RCT.

1. WHO. Global T . b Control Report 2011.
2. Ahmad K JF, Jehan I, Hatcher J, Khan AQ, Chaturvedi N, TH. J. Prevalence and predictors of smoking in Pakistan: outcomes of the nation’s Health Survey of Pakistan. Eur J Cardiovasc Prev Rehabil. 200512(203-8).
3. Alam A, Iqbal A, Mohamud K, Laporte R, Ahmed A, S. N. Investigating socio-economic-demographic determinants of tobacco use within Rawalpindi, Pakistan. BMC Public Health 20088(1):50.
4. Alam S. Prevalence and pattern of smoking in Pakistan. J Pak Mediterranean Assoc 199848:64-6.
5. WHO. WHO: Global report: mortality due to tobacco 2012.
6. Slama K, Chiang CY, Enarson DA, Hassmiller K, Fanning A, Gupta P, et al. Tobacco and t . b: a qualitative systematic review and meta-analysis [Review Article]. The Worldwide Journal of T . b and Lung Disease. 200711(10):1049-61.
7. Lin HH, Ezzati M, Murray M. Cigarettes, indoor polluting of the environment and t . b: an organized review and meta-analysis. PLoS medicine. 20074(1):e20.
8. Jayawardena KAS, Samarathunga M. Baseline Characteristics of Patients and also the Aftereffect of Fixed-Dose Combination Chemotherapy on Sputum Conversion Amount of time in Active Lung T . b: An Initial Study in Kandy District, Sri Lanka. SAARC Journal of T . b, Lung Illnesses and Aids/AIDS.5(1):1-6.
9. Gullon BJA, Suarez TI, Lecuona FM, Galindo MR, Fernandez AR, Rubinos CG, et al. Cigarette smoking and sputum smear conversion in lung t . b. Medicina Clin (Barc). 2007128(15):565-8.
10. Metanat M, Sharifi-Mood B, Parsi M, Sanei-Moghaddam S. Aftereffect of smoking cigarettes on sputum smear conversion time among adult new lung t . b patients: Research from Iran Southeast. Iranian Journal of Clinical Infectious Illnesses.5(1):14-7.
11Kay Siddiqi. A Khan, M Ahmad, O Dogar, M Kanaan, J N Newell, et al. Action to prevent Smoking In Suspected T . b (ASSIST) in Pakistan: a cluster-randomised trial. Lancet 2012 (posted).

Project 2 (Dean Langan)

Getting reviewed the possibility projects offered inside the CRD studentship on evidence synthesis, I discovered the proposal entitled “routine means of random effects meta-analysis” appealed most to my interests and consider your experience. The primary reference given1, is a I’ve formerly read and integrated into my work within meta-analysis a fascinating and novel paper with scope for more work. Individual aspects of the PhD, including initial research, record programming and growth and development of record means of random effects meta-analysis will make sure an chance to develop like a statistician. Julian Higgins, among the supervisors of the project understands my knowledge of the work like a co-author around the papers I’ve formerly been associated with.

Previous work within meta-analysis involved developing novel graphical methods based on the funnel plot, which can be defined as additional overlays towards the funnel plot. All try to help investigate potential impact new research might have with an existing meta-analysis, when the meta-analysis continues to be updated to incorporate this research. These novel methods illustrate the possibility impact when it comes to record significance and heterogeneity. The extra options that come with the funnel plot have applications including 1) informing sample size calculations for the style of future studies qualified for inclusion within the meta-analysis and a pair of) informing the updating prioritization of the portfolio of meta-analyses for example individuals made by the Cochrane Collaboration.

Two papers have presently been written because of these studies one printed within the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology2 and the other recognized within the Stata Journal3. Additional ideas still to become developed include the introduction of just one statistic which quantifies the present sturdiness of the meta-analysis when it comes to how likely new research may change record significance. Other potential further work includes using these techniques in multiple contexts and the introduction of these techniques inside a health economic decision models. There might be scope to incorporate this work while finishing the suggested PhD within You are able to College. This can be possible after discussion with supervisors of the proposal along with other collaborators associated with the work.

1. Higgins JPT, Thompson SG, Spiegelhalter DJ. A re-look at random-effects metaanalysis. Journal from the Royal Record Society Series A 2009 172: 137-159 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-985X.2008.00552.x.
2. Langan, D. Higgins, J.P.T. Gregory, W. Sutton, A.J. Graphical augmentations towards the funnel plot measure the impact of more evidence on the meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology. doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2011.10.009.
3. Crowther, M. Langan, D. Sutton, A.J. Graphical augmentations towards the funnel plot to evaluate the outcome of new research with an existing meta-analysis: The extfunnel command. The Stata Journal (in press).

Project 3

In today’s society, the concept of public health is reaching a vital level chronic conditions and ‘illnesses of lifestyle’ are growing quickly both in the developed and third world, yet still time, there’s growing evidence that facets of the physical atmosphere are more and more starting to falter. Considering these challenges, an essential answer is to pay attention to a persons-atmosphere interface to show virtuous, mutually advantageous cycles which supports to positively support both human health insurance and the healthiness of natural world. Actually, there’s growing proof of the presence of such cycles (1, 2) and there’s great possibility to promote these strategies as a means of ameliorating a few of the major concerns in our time.

A possible research methodology with this project could involve the next:

A. Scoping overview of literature to recognize studies and evidence associated with people’s attitudes and behaviours regarding health insurance and atmosphere
– Here the main focus might be on identifying the theoretical possibility of virtuous cycles through grouping of related health/ecological behaviours into consecutive progressions

B. Secondary analysis of national survey data to recognize predictors of people participating in certain behaviours/attitudes
– Here case study could involve record regression modelling with respect to the data, and predictors might be grouped by socio-demographic factors to evaluate social patterning of behaviours, etc

C. Conduct primary qualitative study with various groups to recognize barriers and facilitators to participating in virtuous cycles in the individual and household level
– Qualitative questions is going to be made to complement gaps identified within the scoping review and also to enrich the outcomes from the quantitative survey data
– Interviews may involve laddering method to understand people’s much deeper motivations and beliefs

This methodological approach will make an effort to answer the next research questions in virtuous cycles in health insurance and ecological behaviours (letters match stages in the methodology):

• What’s the possibility of virtuous cycles in health insurance and atmosphere? (A) E.g. The number of examples exist? Success tales from United kingdom/elsewhere?
• What virtuous cycles are presently being involved in by individuals within the United kingdom? (B) E.g. What behaviours are people doing now that may be characterised like a virtuous cycle?
• Do you know the characteristics of people that participate in virtuous cycles? (B)
• Do you know the barriers to particular categories of people participating in these behaviours? (C)
• What’s the easiest method to promote/facilitate virtuous cycles through policy? (C)

The findings of the Studentship will become important and original simply because they will give you a few of the first evidence around the scope and practicality of utilizing virtuous cycles in health insurance and atmosphere to link mutually advantageous behaviours and policies in the individual and household level. This kind of evidence is only going to be critical later on considering ongoing threats to population health brought on by the ongoing degeneration of the world’s existence supporting systems.

1. London Sustainable Development Commission. (2008). Virtuous Cycles demonstrating the advantages of a sustainable development approach. Golder and Associates.

2. Capon, AG, Synnott, ES, and Holliday, S. (2009). Urbanism, global warming and health: systems methods to governance. NSW Public Health Bulletin. Vol. 20 (12).

Entry

The Department of Health Sciences’ minimum British language requirement is really a total IELTS score of seven. having a minimum of 6.5 in every component or equivalent. You are able to, however, get a conditional offer provided you complete the College of York’s greater level pre-sessional course which runs for eight days. On effective completion, after that you can progress for your programme within Health Sciences. The minimum needs to participate the pre-sessional course are available here.

To try to get the program visit our how you can apply, charges, funding and studentships page or click the buttons below.

Application for PhD in Health Sciences:

Application for MPhil in Health Sciences: