Key Information
Funding provider: Health Data Research UK
Subject areas: Wider Data Science Field, Maths or Computer Science
Project start date: July (2025)
Supervisors: Professor Gwyneth Davies, Professor Rich Fry and Professor Jenni Quint (Imperial College, London)
Aligned programme of study: PhD in Population and Health Data Science
Mode of study: Full or Part-time study is possible
Project description:
Context
The successful candidate will work in a highly interdisciplinary environment as part of a vibrant cohort of HDR UK-funded PhD students, with outstanding networking opportunities with fellow students and colleagues located across the 4 nations of the UK. HDR UK’s mission is to unite the UK’s health data to enable discoveries that improve people’s lives. Its 20-year vision is for large-scale data and advanced analytics to benefit every patient interaction, clinical trial, and biomedical discovery and to enhance public health.
HDRUK is now entering its second Five Year phase (2023-2028) and have a refreshed strategy which will focus on three goals:
- Accelerate Trustworthy Data Use – By implementing a national research data strategy and assembling infrastructure and services aligned to research and innovation needs.
- Empower Researchers – By valuing people with diverse perspectives & skills committed to open and team science to advance scientific discoveries and deliver patient and public benefit.
- Promote Partnerships – By building and maintaining critical partnerships, aligning incentives and reducing complexity across a fragmented landscape to streamline health data science.
This PhD is funded as part of the HDR UK Inflammation and Immunity Driver Programme, which seeks to transform the UK’s capabilities to improve understanding of mechanisms and health outcomes, using respiratory and allergic disorders as exemplar domains. We seek to enrol the most exceptional candidates and nurture them to become the next generation of leaders in health data science. The successful candidate will have opportunities to access, and contribute to, training activities organised by HDR UK, including via HDRUK Futures as well as within their own institution and as part of the Driver Programme team.
This Driver Programme will explore inflammation and immunity as general underpinning mechanisms, using highly prevalent respiratory and allergic diseases in the first instance. These illnesses can be exacerbated by acute inflammatory episodes due to infections (i.e., rhinovirus, coronaviruses, influenza, pneumonia, RSV) a well as pollution, tobacco, pollen, weather, drugs, foods and stinging insects. The long-term plan for the Driver Programme is to extend the data science capabilities and capacity created, to other inflammatory mediated diseases.
Opportunity
This PhD studentship aims to train the successful candidate in public health research methods, health inequalities, epidemiology, and population data science. The student will investigate whether poorer indoor air quality in schools leads to worse asthma and educational outcomes.
This student will also receive supervisory support from the Social & Environmental Determinants of Health Driver Programme and be supported by the recently funded CHILI hub. The CHILI Hub aims to support and improve children’s education as school buildings are being made environmentally sustainable in order to meet the net zero target by 2050. Greater insultation and airtight building designs make buildings more energy efficient, but may also lead to more indoor air pollution becoming trapped, or increasing indoor temperature. Respiratory infections also spread more easily in airtight buildings.
Children and young people spend most of their time in school indoors. The indoor environment at school can support children’s health, and their education. Therefore, it is important to examine how the indoor environment in schools can affect children and young people’s health as school buildings are being adapted to meet the net zero target.
Asthma is a chronic respiratory disease with a significant health and economic burden. In Wales, asthma affects about 1 in 11 people. Evidence shows that the most deprived population groups in Wales have higher rates of asthma prevalence, morbidity, and mortality. Socioeconomic deprivation is a multidimensional construct that encompasses various domains, with income and educational inequalities being the key underlying drivers of asthma inequalities in Wales. The student will consider the role of deprivation in any associations seen between indoor air quality in schools and asthma and/or educational outcomes. The student will develop specific research questions early in the studentship.
The student will have access to nation-wide routinely collected data, including primary and secondary care as well as cause of death records. These data will be obtained from the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank, a secure, privacy-preserving data infrastructure that integrates a wide range of routinely collected data from across Wales. The student will further link this data to the Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation (WIMD) – Wales’ multifaceted area-based socioeconomic deprivation index – and modelled air quality data. Further the studentship will explore the use of Census 2021 individual level data and other deprivation measures, to understand how health inequalities vary at the individual level and household level. In addition, the student will use the Residential Anonymous Linking Field (RALF), an encrypted Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN) which has been used in SAIL since 2012, to enable household level data linkages which will allow examining the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic inequalities in asthma. RALFs allow the linkage of measures of the built and natural environment (e.g. air pollution, greenspace, housing characteristics, access to services) at high spatial resolution and also facilitate understanding of household composition. This builds on work pioneered in Wales and links to the S&E driver programme.
The student will develop and validate appropriate statistical and data science models to assess the relationship between indoor air quality and asthma and educational outcomes (school attendance, educational attainment). Analysis methods will include multilevel models to account for spatial dependencies.
The student will receive state-of-the-art training to develop their knowledge and skills in epidemiology, population data science, such as data manipulation, modelling, and visualization, and information governance. The student will have the opportunity to engage with stakeholders early in their research to receive feedback on research aims and design and translate their findings into policy and practice.
Eligibility
Applicants for PhD must hold an undergraduate degree at 2.1 level and a master’s degree. Alternatively, applicants with a UK first class honours degree (or Non-UK equivalent as defined by Swansea University) not holding a master’s degree, will be considered on an individual basis. See – Country-specific Information for International Applicants.
Candidates with qualifications in mathematics / computer science and a health-related discipline are particularly encouraged to apply, but it would be possible for those with mathematics, physics or other computational training to learn the healthcare context.
Experience in one or more of the following would be desirable:
- Programming in MATLAB/Python/R etc
- Previous research experience with healthcare datasets or electronic health records.
Scholarship open to UK fee eligible applicants only.
Funding
This studentship covers the full cost of tuition fees and an annual stipend at UKRI rate (currently £19,237 for 2024/25).
Additional research expenses will also be available.
How to Apply
To apply, please complete your application online with the following information:
- Course choice– please select: Population and Health Data Science / PhD / Full-time / 3 Years / July
*In the event the Apply system does not allow July for selection, please choose October and we will amend that internally once applications are submitted - Start year– please select 2025
- Funding (page 8 on the application process)
‘Are you funding your studies yourself?’ – please select No
‘Name of Individual or organisation providing funds for study’ – please enter ‘RS784 – HDR UK’
*It is the responsibility of the applicant to list the above information accurately when applying, please note that applications received without the above information listed will not be considered for the scholarship award.
One application is required per individual Swansea University led research scholarship award; applications cannot be considered listing multiple Swansea University led research scholarship awards.
In the event you have already applied for the above programme previously, the application system may issue a warning notice and prevent application, in this case, please email pgrscholarships@swansea.ac.uk where staff will be happy to assist you in submitting your application.
NOTE: Applicants for PhD/EngD/ProfD/EdD – to support our commitment to providing an environment free of discrimination and celebrating diversity at Swansea University you are required to complete an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Monitoring Form in addition to your programme application form.
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Monitoring Form (online form)
Please note that completion of the EDI Monitoring Form is mandatory; your application may not progress if this information is not submitted.
As part of your online application, you MUST upload the following documents (please do not send these via email):
- CV
- Degree certificates and transcripts
- A cover letter
- One reference
- Evidence of meeting English Language requirement (if applicable).
- Copy of UK resident visa (if applicable)
- Confirmation of EDI form submission
Informal enquiries are welcome; please contact: Mohammad al-Sallakh (m.a.alsallakh@swansea.ac.uk)
*External Partner Application Data Sharing – Please note that as part of the scholarship application selection process, application data sharing may occur with external partners outside of the University, when joint/co- funding of a scholarship
