PhD position at Centre for Demographic Studies funded by the TOUCH COFUND project

Topic: Mental health and multimorbidity in Catalonia

A PhD position is available at the Health and Ageing Research Group from the Centre for Demographic Studies under the supervision of Iñaki Permanyer and Jeroen Spijker (Demographers). We are looking for a highly motivated candidate that will investigate the trends in the onset of mental health disorders and the associated multimorbidity and mortality dynamics in Catalonia.

This project aims at documenting with unprecedented detail the trends in the onset of mental health disorders and the associated multimorbidity and mortality dynamics in Catalonia, a region in Spain with 7.5 Million inhabitants. To do so, we plan to take advantage of a huge and largely underexplored database: the health registers for the entire population in Catalonia -- the “Public Data Analysis for Health Research and Innovation Program” (PADRIS). The large number of cases included in the registers and their longitudinal nature (i.e., the evolution of patients in the system can be tracked over time since the year 2005) offers a unique opportunity to observe the health trajectories of individuals and measure the evolution of true comorbidity patterns.

Another very unusual and highly attractive characteristic of the dataset is that it links mortality with morbidity information, thus allowing the possibility of studying these two demographic phenomena as a coherent whole – rather than as separate compartments as is usually the case because of data constraints. With this novel information, it will be possible to compare the health trajectories of individuals diagnosed with mental health disorders against those individuals without such diagnoses.

Another of the main goals of the project is to develop new population health indicators to obtain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of contemporary population health dynamics in Catalonia. The richness of the PADRIS dataset cannot be fully described with standard population health measures (like life expectancy or healthy life expectancy), so the design and implementation of new indicators that go beyond population-level averages and explain the heterogeneity of the corresponding health distribution is among the project key objectives.

The successful candidate will be enrolled in the Demography doctoral program at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in the framework of the TOUCH project. TOUCH (“Towards the next generatiOn of excellent yoUng doctoral researchers on mental health by developing an intersectoral & transdisciplinary approaCH”) is a new excellent doctoral programme co-funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Actions of the European Commission and led by the UAB for the recruitment and training of 24 doctoral candidates in the field of mental health and wellbeing.

The “Health and Ageing”group that aims at producing scientific knowledge on some of the most pressing issues in contemporary health dynamics, with the ultimate goal of guiding the design and implementation of public policies to promote healthier and fairer societies. The main research lines of the unit revolve around the following topics: Ageing and Society; Health, Mortality and Causes of Death; Health Inequalities; and Elderly Care. The group members have participated in 29 research projects during the period July 2017-April 2022, either as principal investigators, as co-PIs or as team members. Overall, 27 of these projects have been awarded through public and competitive calls from European, American, Spanish and Catalan institutions, and the remaining 2 come from private contracts.

The group has a high level of internationalization and excels in its research. It is led by Dr. Iñaki Permanyer, an ICREA Research Professor who has been awarded two consecutives ERC grants.

We are looking for candidates with an excellent CV, ahigh degree of ambition and motivation, and with good personal qualities to work in our Team. We offer a 3-year full-time contract (37,5 hours/week) and a gross salary of 2.375 €/month (the salary will be the same for the 3 years).

The candidates must fulfil the following eligibility criteria from the EC: Mobility rule: candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Spain for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately preceding the deadline for the programme call. Experience rule: researchers must be doctoral candidates at the date of recruitment, i.e. not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the deadline of the open calls. Researchers who have successfully defended their doctoral thesis but have not yet formally awarded the doctoral degree will not be considered eligible. Candidates must hold a degree that allows admission to the official doctoral programme at UAB.

Interested applicants should apply through the TOUCH online platform by submitting a full CV, a motivation letter, two letters of recommendation and academic and English level certificates. The call will be open from the 1^st of April to the 30^th of June 2024. More information about the TOUCH project, the recruitment process, and the application platform are available on the TOUCH website.