Research Associate in Population Mental Health (Quantitative Methods)

In April 2024, the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London led the establishment of a national disseminated population mental health consortium, as part of a UKRI funded population health improvement initiative (Population Health Improvement UK- PHIUK). This post will be situated in the Department of Psychological Medicine, at IoPPN (Denmark Hill campus), London (KCL) and will work across this partnership.  

This is an exciting opportunity for a postdoctoral researcher, with a strong background in quantitative methods and mental health research, to develop a programme of work examining upstream social determinants on mental health, with a focus on exploring the consequences of employment and welfare policies and reforms on mental health.

 

You will work across linked datasets (Department for Work and Pensions, mental health records, cohorts) and will be encouraged to develop high quality statistical methods to enhance causal inferences relating to the association of economic policy/ benefit changes with mental health outcomes. You will be encouraged to consider the impact of changes on wider inequities, eg. relating to race/ ethnicity and other protected characteristics, and where possible link to the consortium’s three challenge areas (children and young people, prevention of self-harm and suicide and multiple long-term conditions).

 

You will work closely with the Co-Director of the consortium (Prof Das-Munshi) and Dr Sharon Stevelink (Co-lead for the ‘Data, linkages and causal inference’ platform) and will work closely with the ‘Economic Wellbeing Programme’, convened by Thrive-LDN, and with people with lived experience, to develop the programme of work.

 

Experience across a range of data sources (eg. CPRD, BHF COVID Consortium data, UK birth cohorts, nationally representative surveys) and linked data would be an advantage, as would experience in applying quasi-experimental methodologies (eg. propensity score matching, difference in difference design, interrupted time series analyses etc.) to enhance causal inferences from observational data.

 

The population mental health consortium will be establishing a training programme and the postholder will be expected to work with this platform to share learning across the wider membership and inform the development of training materials.  

The postholder will be supported to develop their academic career, including through fellowship applications and other grant applications to external research funders (led by the applicant or others in the team), and will be encouraged to explore collaborations with others. The postholder will receive research and wider professional skills development through local Early Career Researcher Networks and the College’s wider training programme.

 

This is a full time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 31 March 2028.

Type / Role:

Subject Area(s):

Location(s):