Research Associate in Behaviour and Health

Norwich Medical School & Health and Social Science Research Institute and School Of Economics

University of East Anglia

REF: RA738
Fixed-term for 2 years.
£29,972 to £35,788 per annum.

This full time post is part of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit (BHRU), one of nine new Policy Research Units funded by the Department of Health Policy Research Programme for an initial five year period. The Unit aims to contribute evidence to national and international efforts to achieve sustained behaviour change in order to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities. The work of the Unit will focus initially on four behaviours: diet, physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption.

The post will primarily involve exploring the actual and potential relevance of behavioural/experimental economics for our understanding of the average and distributional effects of interventions directly or indirectly aimed at changing health behaviours, through a critical review of the relevant health and non-health literature in economics, psychology and other relevant disciplines. In addition, the post will involve a contribution to the synthesis and critical appraisal of evidence on economic evaluation of interventions directly or indirectly affecting behaviour change in the health behaviours covered by the BHRU, and the application of econometric methods to assess the causal (average and possibly distributional) impact of interventions/policies to improve health behaviour and health outcomes, using available observational data.

The post-holder is expected to bring knowledge and skills in behavioural/experimental economics and evidence synthesis. The position would suit postdoctoral (completed or soon to be submitted), experienced post-Masters candidates with well developed skills in behavioural/experimental economics, psychology, econometrics, economic evaluation in health, literature searching, and evidence synthesis. The post is offered jointly by the Medical School and the School of Economics at UEA.

Closing date: 12 noon on 1 April 2011.

Further particulars and an application form are available on our website: http://www.uea.ac.uk/hr/jobs/ or Tel 01603 593493.