Research Department of Infection and Population Health

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship as part of the NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR) to be based within the Health Psychology Research Group, Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology at University College London (UCL).

The studentship will focus on the development and evaluation of a theory-based smartphone application to reduce excessive alcohol consumption (outline proposal attached). It will be supervised by Professor Susan Michie and Professor Robert West, Dept of Epidemiology and Public Health, UCL

Funding is available for 3 years to cover PhD registration fees (UK/EU), a stipend (at the rate of £16,150 per annum), a Research Training Support Grants of £2000, and the research and development costs.

Start date: 25th September 2013

Deadline for applications: 12 noon, 10th July 2013

For further information contact: Professor Susan Michie (s.michie@ucl.ac.uk) or Professor Robert West (Robert.west@ucl.ac.uk).

Health Psychology Research Group, University College London

UCL’s Health Psychology Research Group (www.ucl.ac.uk/health-psychology/research-group) is led by Prof Susan Michie. Its focus is on designing and evaluating interventions to change behaviour, drawing on psychological evidence and theory. It has a strong multi-disciplinary and translational emphasis. It is linked with the British Psychological Society's Centre for Outcomes Research and Effectiveness and sits within the Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology which has a large research programme as well as postgraduate and professional training programmes. Health Psychology at UCL has close connections with the Faculty of Population Health Sciences. There is excellent support for staff and students, with a variety of seminars, training and conference opportunities.

NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR)

UCL is one of eight academic partners with excellence in applied public health research that make up the NIHR SPHR. Launched in April 2012, SPHR will receive funding of

£20 million over five years to support the English public health system to develop into the future by:

• narrowing the gap between the users and suppliers of research
• increasing the evidence base for effective public health practice
• undertaking applied translational research
• considering local public health needs and evaluating innovative local practices with potential for wider population benefit.

The School’s emphasis is on identifying interventions and approaches that work practically, can be applied across the country and better meet the needs of policy makers, practitioners and the public.

Supervision: UCL offers excellent supervision and the student will have access to a wide range of academic activities across psychology and population health sciences. It is expected that the student would also benefit from the networks offered by the wider SPHR collaboration. The second supervisor, Professor Robert West, is Director of UCL’s Tobacco Research Group, Editor of Addiction. His research in digital behaviour change interventions includes the development and evaluation of a smartphone app for smoking cessation.

Publication and wider dissemination: It is expected that the results of the PhD research will be publishable in good quality, peer-reviewed academic journals and communicated at conferences. In addition, the research would be expected to generate outputs that are tailored to public health practitioner and policy making audiences.

Eligibility & funding

This studentship is open to those wishing to undertake a Postgraduate Research degree who have already completed appropriate research training (usually through obtaining a good Master’s degree in a relevant subject).

Due to funding restrictions applicants must be UK/EU nationals and have been resident in the UK for three years immediately prior to starting a PhD to be eligible.

The studentship covers the full cost of the tuition fees (for European Union students) and provides an annual, tax-free maintenance stipend of £16,150 Further funds, up to a maximum of £15,000, are available to cover research costs. The recipient will also receive a Research Training Support Grant of £2,000 to cover additional expenses related to their research, such as travel, conferences, books and other miscellaneous items.

Application process

Please submit a 2 page CV including details of two academic or professional referees; a covering statement outlining your motivations for training in applied public health research; and a 1 page outline of your proposed research. Applications should be submitted electronically to Ms. Kay Stratton (k.stratton@ucl.ac.uk) and please state ‘NIHR SPHR Studentship – Alcohol’ as the subject of the email.

Deadline for applications: 12 noon, 10th July 2013

Interview date: 26th July 2013

Start date: 25th September 2013

Outline Proposal: Developing and evaluating a theory-based smartphone application to reduce excessive alcohol consumption

Base: Clinical, Educational & Health Psychology, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, UCL (ESRC accredited Doctoral Training Centre)

Lead Supervisors: Professor Susan Michie and Professor Robert West (UCL)

Junior Supervisor: Dr Jamie Brown (UCL)

Expert advice: Professor Colin Drummond, Professor of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry (expert in alcohol interventions); Dr Zarnie Khadjesari (expert in internet-based interventions for people with hazardous alcohol consumption, UCL)

Project details

Background

Brief interventions to reduce excessive alcohol use, involving usually a single session with a health professional of less than 30 minutes, appear to have had little impact at population level (Kaner et al, 2007). Digital interventions to support behaviour change offer the prospect of wide reach and very high cost-effectiveness. These include internet, SMS text and smartphone application (app) interventions.

While internet-based interventions and to a lesser extent SMS text messaging interventions have been the subject of systematic evaluations, to date almost no research has been conducted evaluating apps that may be offered on smartphones or tablet computers. Such interventions have a high plausibility as vehicles for supporting behaviour change, with high accessibility, continuity of support, flexibility and the opportunity for specific activities that can be undertaken as needed. It is rare for digital interventions to be developed or evaluated on the basis of theory, which limits the understanding of their mechanisms of action and, hence, the potential to optimise them.

Recent research by SM and RW has found that giving advice on self-monitoring was a key component of effective brief face-to-face interventions to reduce excessive alcohol consumption, accounting for 70% of the variance in effect sizes (Michie et al, 2012). This chimes well with studies in other areas of behaviour change which also suggest that goal setting, self-monitoring and feedback are key behaviour change techniques for success. These behaviour change techniques are well suited to delivery through an app, which can be used in “real-time”, available when and where needed. Combined with clear goal setting, motivational messaging and advice on behavioural substitution, there are sufficient empirical and theoretical grounds to seek to develop and evaluate an app designed to combat excessive alcohol consumption.

It is important to note that this app would target the large proportion of the population who contribute most of the population-level alcohol-related harm – those who drink above the recommended limit but would not be considered heavily dependent on alcohol (Poikelainen et al, 2007).

There are many apps available for this purpose and some are beginning to be evaluated. What would be novel about this is that it would 1) benefit from links with the DH communications team to recruit from their website and be directly implementable on the website if found to be effective, 2) be developed using a fully transparent process that we have used for a smoking cessation app in which we identified key behaviour change techniques with the strongest evidence base and theoretical foundation, and combined that with the best evidence on what makes apps attractive, 3) involve an iterative development process with repeated user involvement, 4) use an open source approach with full sharing of concepts and code to promote continued further development once the initial RCT has been completed.

Aims

This studentship aims to (i) systematically review the evidence for, and theoretical basis of, the effectiveness of mobile phone apps in changing behaviour, including addictive behaviours, (ii) design an app to help excessive alcohol consumers reduce their consumption, drawing on PRIME Theory (West, 2006) and the Behaviour Change Wheel (Michie et al, 2011) and (iii) evaluate the app in an RCT.

Methods

Systematic review: The review will draw on both Cochrane methodology and the NICE methods manual for public health interventions, which takes a more conceptual approach to evidence searching and synthesis. It will also adopt the meta-regression approach used by the research team (Michie et al, 2012) to identify intervention components (in the form of behaviour change techniques) that are associated with larger effect sizes and to understand these theoretically.

Intervention development: The intervention will follow the procedure established by the team in the development of other digital interventions: identify the behaviour changes techniques that offer greatest potential impact for the widest target audience, drawing on theory, the Behaviour Change Wheel and relevant literature; build a ‘wire-frame’ prototype; go through an iterative process of development and user testing to create a full prototype; undertake a full pilot of the prototype to establish the potential impact; undertake further refinements as needed to create the version to put into the RCT.

Evaluation: The RCT will compare the theory-based app with an information-only version that will be designed as part of the project. Excessive alcohol consumers will be recruited from websites including NHS Choices and Change4Life, which has worked well in other studies. They will all download the same app (which will include consenting to be allocated to different experimental conditions) but will be randomised to the intervention or control version. Outcome will be assessed by a standard quantity-frequency daily self-report electronic diary record. The sample size has to be determined but is likely to be in the region of 2,000 across both conditions.

In designing and evaluating a theory-based digital intervention to reduce excessive alcohol consumption, this studentship will make a significant contribution to the field and could create a highly cost-effective public health intervention with wide reach. There is a lack of effective digital interventions for reducing excessive alcohol use and a need to increase evidence and theory from behavioural science into the field of addiction generally (Webb et al, 2010a), digital interventions (Webb et al, 2010b) and alcohol interventions (Michie et al, 2012).

References

• Kaner E, Beyer F, Dickinson H, Pienaar E, Campbell F, Schlesinger C, Heather N, Saunders J, Burnand B. Brief interventions for excessive drinkers in primary health care settings (Full Review). Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2007, Issue 2. Art No.: CD004148 DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD004148.pub3
• Michie S, van Stralen MM, West R. (2011). The Behaviour Change Wheel: a new method for characterizing and designing behaviour change interventions. Implementation Science, 6, 42. Doi:10.1186/1748-5908-6-42.
• Michie S, Whittington C, Hamoudi Z, Zarnani F, Tober G, West R. (2012). Identification of behaviour change techniques to reduce excessive alcohol consumption. Addiction, 107,8. Doi: 10.1111/j.1360-0443.2012.03845.x.
• Poikelainen et al, 2007
• Webb TL, Sniehotta FF, Michie S. (2010a). Using theories of behaviour change to inform interventions for addictive behaviours. Addiction, 105, 1879-1892. Doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2010.03028.x
• Webb TL, Joseph J, Yardley L, Michie S. (2010b). Using the internet to promote health behaviour change: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the impact of theoretical basis, use of behaviour change techniques, and mode of delivery on efficacy. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 12, 1. Doi:10.2196/jmir.1376West R (2006)

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National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Public Health Research PhD Studentships

Applications are invited for PhD studentships as part of the NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR), to be based within an appropriate department within the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences.

The two studentships available will focus on a topic of the student’s choice that fits within core themes of work UCL is developing as part of the NIHR SPHR; young people, sexual health and alcohol use; and ageing well.

Funding is available for 3 years to cover PhD registration fees (UK/EU), a stipend (at the rate of £16,150 per annum), £5000 per annum for research and development costs, and a Research Training Support Grants of £2000.

For further information contact: Professor Anne Johnson, Research Department of Infection & Population Health (anne.johnson@ucl.ac.uk) regarding research on young people’s sexual health and alcohol use; or Dr Kate Walters, Research Department of Primary Care and Population Health (k.walters@ucl.ac.uk) regarding research on ageing well.

NIHR School for Public Health Research (SPHR)

UCL is one of eight academic partners with excellence in applied public health research that make up the NIHR SPHR. Launched in April 2012, SPHR will receive funding of £20 million over five years to support the English public health system to develop into the future by:

• narrowing the gap between the users and suppliers of research
• increasing the evidence base for effective public health practice
• undertaking applied translational research
• considering local public health needs and evaluating innovative local practices with potential for wider population benefit.

The School’s emphasis is on identifying interventions and approaches that work practically, can be applied across the country and better meet the needs of policy makers, practitioners and the public.

Relevant SPHR research in development includes:

• Personalising preventive interventions in later life
• Inequitable access to preventive and therapeutic health interventions for older people
• Review of reviews in sexual health and young people
• Development of integrated services for sexual health and young people in Local Authorities
• Sexual health interventions in schools
• Young People's lifestyles, risk profiles and preferences for services in the third National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (Natsal)
• New technologies for reducing excessive alcohol use
• The Alcohol Toolkit Study: Tracking key performance indicators of alcohol consumption in England

UCL members of the SPHR are based across a number of UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences Institutes and departments, including;

Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care

The Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care at UCL) is part of the Faculty of Population Health Sciences within the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences (SLMS). The Institute comprises four Research Departments and associated MRC Units - each of which is based at one or more sites across the UCL estate - as follows:

• CHIME http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk
• Epidemiology and Public Health http://www.ucl.ac.uk/epidemiology/
• Infection and Population Health http://www.ucl.ac.uk/iph/
• MRC Clinical Trials Unit http://www.ctu.mrc.ac.uk/
• Primary Care and Population Health http://www.ucl.ac.uk/pcph/

Its skills mix of epidemiological, clinical, statistical and behavioural science provides the scientific basis to underpin an internationally competitive research programme focused on:

• Understanding the determinants of health & disease in populations & in patients in clinical settings;
• Evaluating strategies for the prevention & treatment of physical & mental ill health; and
• Teaching and capacity building in population health.

Our work ranges across the life-course from childhood through to old age. Our chronic disease Epidemiology focuses on the social and biological determinants of health, particularly in cardiovascular disease, and its Public Health implications. We undertake research in Primary Care to improve health outcomes. In the field of Infectious Disease in Populations, we investigate the transmission and control of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), ’flu and tuberculosis. We have a strong research and teaching profile in information and quality management to support clinical practice. We participate in many national and international interdisciplinary collaborations, and have a large portfolio of research linked to UCL’s Global Health Initiative. The Institutional Director is Professor Andrew Steptoe. Further information on the Institute and Departments can be found at: www.ucl.ac.uk/iehc

Research Department of Infection & Population Health

The aim of the Department is to reduce the population impacts of infection, and to promote individual health by means of the prevention and treatment of communicable and non-communicable disease. We work locally, nationally and internationally to realize this goal. There are four groups: the Centre for Sexual Health & HIV Research (based at the Mortimer Market Centre), the HIV Epidemiology & Biostatistics Group, the Health Psychology Unit (both based on the Royal Free campus) and the Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology (which is based at both Mortimer Market and the Royal Free). There is considerable joint working across the groups, particularly on HIV. The Head of the Research Department is Dr Richard Gilson, the Deputy-Head, Dr Andrew Hayward. The Research Department is part of the Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care (Director: Professor Andrew Steptoe).

Department of Applied Health Research

The Department of Applied Health Research is part of the Research Department of Epidemiology and Public Health within the Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care. The Department evaluates health care, population health interventions and strategies to improve the organisation and widespread implementation of health care and public health. It focuses on the interventions, programmes and pathways which are most likely to have a substantial impact on health improvement and on reductions in health and health care inequalities. The Department‘s interests span health economics, public health, health services and national, local and individual measures to improve health for all social groups. The Head of the Department is Professor Rosalind Raine, Professor of Health Care Evaluation.

Research Department of Primary Care & Population Health

The Research Department of Primary Care and Population Health is part of the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care and is headed by Professor Irwin Nazareth. The Department’s strategic aim is to deliver high quality teaching in community-based primary care and public health and to undertake a programme of internationally competitive multi-disciplinary research addressing the management and prevention of disease in individuals and populations in areas which are of priority to the health of the public.

Mental Health Sciences Unit

The Mental Health Sciences Unit is part of UCL’s Faculty of Brain Sciences and is directed by Professor Michael King. Mental Health Sciences specialises in clinical research, psychiatric epidemiology, molecular genetics, health services research and randomised trials of complex treatments in primary and secondary health care. Research is increasingly bridging the translational gap between neuroscience and applied clinical research. PRIMENT Clinical Trials Unit is directed from Mental Health Sciences and the Research Department of Primary Care and Population Health This expertise in mental health trials at UCL extends to methodological developments of complex interventions, the design of trials to evaluate them, the statistical and health economics aspects of such evaluations, and the implementation of evidence arising from the trials.

Health Psychology Research Group

UCL’s Health Psychology Research Group (www.ucl.ac.uk/health-psychology/research-group) is led by Professor Susan Michie. Its focus is on designing and evaluating interventions to change behaviour, drawing on psychological evidence and theory. It has a strong multi-disciplinary and translational emphasis. It is linked with the British Psychological Society's Centre for Outcomes Research and Effectiveness and sits within the Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology which has a large research programme as well as postgraduate and professional training programmes. Health Psychology at UCL has close connections with the Faculty of Population Health Sciences. There is excellent support for staff and students, with a variety of seminars, training and conference opportunities.

PhD Research Topics

Candidates are expected to generate their own research ideas in discussion with potential supervisors, but the topic and approach proposed should be in line with SPHR’s applied public health focus and address one or more of the core research strands of the School. These are: young people, sexual health and alcohol use; and ageing well.

The exact topic will be agreed between the candidate and UCL members of the SPHR. Applications that show an awareness of the value and importance of involving patients, the public and the end users of evidence within the research project will be favourably received. Candidates are invited to contact Professor Anne Johnson or Dr Kate Walters prior to submitting an application in order to discuss their research ideas and compatibility.

Examples of current research projects underway by SPHR can be found here: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/scharr/sphr/asm2012.

Supervision: UCL is a centre of research excellence that brings together academics at the forefront of public health research, exceptional facilities, a passion for pioneering cross-disciplinary research and world-class professional development training. UCL has the best academic to student ratio in the UK (1:10), compared with the UK average of 17.8 (Times 2013). This enables us to provide outstanding individual support to our students. The university also offers outstanding facilities for research students. Students will have access to a wide range of academic activities across population health sciences, mental health and psychology. It is expected that the student would also benefit from the networks offered by the wider SPHR collaboration.

Publication and wider dissemination: It is expected that the results of the PhD research will be publishable in good quality, peer-reviewed academic journals and communicated at conferences. In addition, the research would be expected to generate outputs that are tailored to public health practitioner and policy making audiences.

Eligibility & funding

This studentship is open to those wishing to undertake a Postgraduate Research degree who have already completed appropriate research training (usually through obtaining a good Master’s degree in a relevant subject).

Due to funding restrictions applicants must be UK/EU nationals and have been resident in the UK for three years immediately prior to starting a PhD to be eligible.

The studentship covers the full cost of the tuition fees (for European Union students) and provides an annual, tax-free maintenance stipend of £16,150 Further funds, up to a maximum of £5,000 per annum, are available to cover research costs. The recipient will also receive a Research Training Support Grant of £2,000 to cover additional expenses related to their research, such as travel, conferences, books and other miscellaneous items.

Application process

Please submit a 2 page CV including details of two academic or professional referees; a covering statement outlining your motivations for training in applied public health research; and a 1 page outline of your proposed research. Applications should be submitted electronically to Ms. Kay Stratton (k.stratton@ucl.ac.uk) and please state ‘NIHR SPHR Studentship – General’ as the subject of the email.

Deadline for applications: 12 noon, 10th July 2013

Interview dates: 19th July 2013 General studentships

Start date: 25th September 2013

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