Research Associate in Pharmacoepidemiology and Data Linkage

About Us

The Unit for Paediatric & Population-Based Dermatology Research is part of St John’s Institute of Dermatology and led by Professor Carsten Flohr, Chair in Dermatology & Population Health Sciences.

We specialise in translational and clinical research on the prevention, epidemiology and treatment of skin diseases and allergies, with a main interest in atopic eczema, food allergy and psoriasis.

About the role

An exceptional opportunity has arisen for a highly skilled statistician, public health researcher or epidemiologist with an interest in pharmaco-epidemiology, drug safety and data linkage to provide crucial support to the UK-Irish Atopic eczema Systemic TherApy Register (A-STAR).

The study’s main objectives are to study the treatment effectiveness, safety and cost of systemic immuno-modulatory therapies, both conventional immuno-suppressive drugs but also novel biologics and small molecules. The study is now open in >40 sites across the UK and Ireland. To fulfil its full potential, A-STAR needs to establish a robust data analysis strategy and data linkage with national healthcare data providers.

These include Hospital Episodes Statistics (HES), mortality, Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), and NCRS (National Cancer Registry Service) such as by NHS Digital in England, for long-term follow up. This data will supplement that acquired via the A-STAR platform and provide a more comprehensive picture of each participant’s health.

The A-STAR team already has a part-time senior and junior statistician and junior and senior data manager, and you will provide additional dedicated expertise and support to facilitate the data linkage, pharmaco-epidemiological activities, and statistical analyses.

This is a full time (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 31st December 2025.

Successful candidates will have the opportunity to work as part of King’s hybrid working model, where you can work between your home and the office throughout the week. The expectation would be to be present in the office for on average of 4 days a week, which can be negotiated after 3 months. This will also have to be approved by the Line Managers.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

• PhD awarded in epidemiology, public health, or statistics*
• Good programming skills and experience in R, specifically in handling large data sets
• Previous experience of data cleaning / management of large datasets
• Experience in undertaking robust data preparation for statistical analysis
• Awareness of Good Clinical Practice and the Research Governance Framework
• Previous experience of contributing to publications/presentations
• Good understanding of The Data Protection Act and the principals of information governance

*Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant. Upon confirmation of the award of the PhD, the job title will become Research Associate and the salary will increase to Grade 6. 

Desirable criteria

• Publications in academic journals
• Experience of mentoring junior researchers
• Experience of pharmaco-epidemiology or drug safety research
• Experience in AI/machine learning
• Experience in dermatology research

Closing date: 21 July 2024

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