PhD candidate - Characterization of communities

Without intervening, 40% of the Dutch adult population will suffer from a chronic non-communicable disease (NCD) such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), type 2 diabetes (T2D), or chronic kidney disease (CKD) over the next decade. These NCDs share several lifestyle-related risk factors and occur disproportionately frequent in communities and populations residing in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Less affluent population groups and neighborhoods are not only more often affected by clustering of NCDs but also have higher environmental burden in their residential neighborhoods such as air and noise pollution and limited greenness. This clustering of NCDs (co- or multi-morbidity) in a detrimental environmental context may result in a double hit with synergistic effects and has been referred to as “ecosyndemics”. The aim of ECOTIP project is to identify tipping points from where resilience develops into an ecosyndemic and which underlying mechanisms contribute to this regression. Using an ecosyndemic systems approach to explore multi-disease risk as a result of changes in the physical environment can assist in identifying hotspots of multimorbidity and better target multifaceted lifestyle interventions on a policy, healthcare and community level.
ECOTIP is a 5-year research program, funded by the NWA-ORC program of the Dutch research funding organization NOW. ECOTIP is realized by a consortium of multiple Dutch universities/ university medical centers, coordinated by the Leiden University Medical Centre in collaboration with multiple non-academic partners.

Your PhD project (work package 1 of the ECOTIP project) aims to classify and characterize communities in terms of high and low clustering of chronic disease comorbidities as well as active and passive environmental exposures/stressors. The focus will be on cardiovascular diseases. You will integrate deep geographic phenotyping data with high-resolution personal exposure information to perform (geographic) cluster analyses on the basis of various data sources. With these we will perform cluster analyses to identify clusters. These clusters will be vizualized by geographical mapping. In these maps, we will identify hotspot areas of clusters with adverse social and living environment conditions to establish characteristics of potential resilience and ecosyndemics. This ambitious research project will be completed with a PhD-thesis. We offer the opportunity to participate in (courses of) the Master of Science in Epidemiology at Utrecht University.

The maximum salary for this position (36 - 36 hours) is € 3.824,00 gross per month based on full-time employment.

In addition, we offer an annual benefit of 8.3%, holiday allowance, travel expenses and career opportunities. The terms of employment are in accordance with the Cao University Medical Centers (UMC).

You will be part of a large consortium of interdisciplinary researchers dedicated to the ECOTIP project. You will be stationed at the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, which is part of the University Medical Center Utrecht, and you will be embedded in the Global Public Health and Bioethics department. The Julius Center performs (epidemiological) studies on cardiovascular disease, cancer, infectious disease, mental health as well as methodology and biostatistics. It is a leading and multidisciplinary research center. Within the research group, there is a wide range of expertise on cardiometabolic disease epidemiology and environmental determinants of health behaviors and chronic diseases. The Julius Center has an excellent infrastructure for PhD students and provides a working environment with ample opportunity for development and growth.