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The role of parents in reducing the transmission of infectious diseases in schools

Start date: 1 October 2019

Award: One fully funded PhD which can be either “+3” (a 3yr PhD studentship only) or “1+3” (a 1yr MSc followed by a 3yr PhD).

This is funded by the London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Programme as a CASE studentship (link to https://liss-dtp.ac.uk/case-studentships-student-applicants/).

Project: Certain infectious diseases, including flu, diarrhoea and vomiting, spread readily among school children. To combat this, Public Health England has produced recommendations about the length of time children should be kept off school when sick. Unfortunately, these recommendations are often not followed: evidence suggests that one in six parents in England would send their child to school even if they had diarrhoea and vomiting. In this PhD, we will use interviews and focus groups with parents to understand why sick children are sent to school, and what can be done to discourage this.

We will then develop new advice for parents which we hope will increase the chances of parents keeping their children out of school when sick. To test this, we will recruit a large group of parents, and ask each parent to read either our new advice or existing messages about sickness in school children. They will then be asked to imagine that their child wakes up tomorrow with diarrhoea and to say whether they would be likely to send them to school or not. Reducing the number who would send their child to school by even a small percentage could have important public health benefits.

This exciting new project is a partnership between psychologists at King’s College London and public health experts at Public Health England, and will be based in the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Emergency Preparedness and Response. It will provide the student with experience of how to apply psychological theories to pressing public health problems, and allow them to benefit from supervision from both expert academics and public health practitioners. 

 

Supervisors

Dr James Rubin, Reader in the Psychology of Emerging Health Risks, King’s College London, and Dr Richard Amlôt, Scientific Programme Leader, Behavioural Science, Emergency Response Department, Public Health England.

Entry requirements: 

Applicants should have a Bachelors degree with 2:1 honours (or Overseas equivalent). A 2:2 degree may be considered only where applicants also offer a Masters with Merit.

Award types and eligibility: 

The award covers tuition fees, stipend and research costs. Applicants must meet the ESRC eligibility guidelines in terms of UK/EU residency status and academic qualifications, specifically core social science research methods training that must already have been undertaken if the ‘+3’ award is being requested. 

 

How to apply: 

Applicants must complete and submit an application, by midday (12:00 GMT), Monday 25th February 2019. 

In your application, you will be asked to include:

  • a completed ESRC LISS DTP Collaborative (CASE) Application Form
  • a copy of your CV
  • 2 academic references, or 1 academic and 1 professional reference (these should be sent directly to liss-dtp@kcl.ac.uk by your referees)
  • copies of transcripts for all relevant degrees

 

These materials should be sent BOTH to liss-dtp@kcl.ac.uk and the project academic lead (gideon.rubin@kcl.ac.uk) by the deadline.

You are welcome to email Dr Rubin at gideon.rubin@kcl.ac.uk for more information regarding the project and studentship.

For further details about the application process, please go to: https://liss-dtp.ac.uk/case-studentships-student-applicants/

 

Closing date: Midday (12:00 GMT) on Monday 25th February 2019. 

Interviews: Thursday 7th March 2019.

 

Further information:

About the LISS-DTP and this PhD scheme

About the IoPPN 

Studying at the IoPPN

MSc programmes at the IoPPN 

Research degrees at the IoPPN 

KCL Researcher Development Programme 

 

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