Institution: Public Health Foundation of India
Location: Visakhapatnam
Duration: Two years
Start date: August 1, 2024
Brief on the Organization
The Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) is working towards building a healthier India. It is helping to address the limited institutional and systems capacity in India by strengthening education and training, advancing research and technology and facilitating policy and practice in the area of Public Health. PHFI is headquartered in New Delhi with national presence through its constituent units of regional Indian Institutes of Public Health (IIPHs) and Centers of Applied Research in core public health themes. The Foundation, established in 2006 as a public private initiative, is governed by an independent board comprising of senior government officials, eminent Indian and International academic and leaders, civil society representatives and corporate leaders. For more information, please visit the website www.phfi.org.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research has awarded funding to the Public Health Foundation of India and the University of Leicester to establish a Global Health Research Centre for Multiple Long-Term Conditions (MLTCs). MLTCs are commonly defined as the co-existence of two or more long term conditions, each of which is a long-term physical (e.g., diabetes), mental (e.g., depression) or an infectious disease (hepatitis C). According to recent community surveys from India, the prevalence of MLTCs ranges from 9.4% to 65%. Age, female gender, lower socioeconomic status, and physical inactivity are the main risk factors for MLTCs. Despite its growing burden, MLTCs have received minimal recognition from healthcare providers and policymakers. Health systems are still focused on individual disease management rather than having an integrated care model, resulting in the delivery of fragmented and inefficient care. The Centre aims to address some of these issues via co-designing, implementing, and evaluating a patient-centred health system intervention comprising a decision support system, assisted telemedicine and patient-facing mobile application.
The fully funded two-year postdoctoral position will be embedded within the Centre. The selected candidate will work full-time with the Centre investigators with joint mentoring from PHFI and University of Leicester to conduct research. This may include (but is not limited to) formative research to develop the intervention, health system assessments, designing and implementing pilot cluster randomised controlled trial, full-scale cluster RCT, process evaluation of the trial, participatory action research etc. They will be paid a stipend based on their credentials and will have ample opportunities to undertake short term trainings in the UK for professional development.
PhD in public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, health systems research, behavioral science, health economics or related disciplines or MD in Public Health/Community Medicine/Clinical subjects with interest and commitment to building a research career.
- Highly motivated with an eye for detail
- Strong technical skills with the breadth of knowledge and some in depth understanding of the area to be explored
- Proficient (or willingness to build skill) in using software for quantitative (Stata or R), qualitative (NVivo) or mixed methods analysis
- Track record of high-quality research (E.g., at least 2 publications in peer-reviewed journals)
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English and the local language i.e. Telugu
- Willingness and ability to work with teams and individually.
Please email the following documents as one single PDF to surabhi.verma@phfi.org with a copy to smohan@phfi.org and Shifalika.goenka@phfi.org before July 31, 2024.
- Curriculum vitae or bio-sketch
- Statement of purpose (max 2-pages)
- Two publications (if available where the candidate is the first author)
- Name, address and email ID of two references
If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Surabhi Verma at surabhi.verma@phfi.org
Previous applicants need not apply again