We have a funded (fees + stipend) three-year PhD studentship available for entry October 2019. If you are interested in big data, spatial analysis and the effect of the food environment on diet, please apply.

The aim of this project is to explore whether different elements of the local food environment are associated with changes in purchasing of food and drinks for consumption both inside and outside homes over time and how these may influence diet and dietary outcomes.

The objectives are:

1. To construct novel time-varying relative and absolute measures of the local food environment and matched with data on household food purchasing.

2. Examine cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between features of the local food environment and household food and drink purchasing for consumption both in- and outside of the home.

3.  Analyse whether these effects are distributed and whether they are modified by markers of socio-economic position, product price and household composition.

4. Utilise the effects of changes in purchasing behaviour to estimate the effect on diet-related health outcomes.

The project will be supervised by Prof Steven Cummins (primary),  Dr Laura Cornelsen (secondary) and Dr Andrea Ballatore (secondary; Birkbeck University).

Closing date for applications is: Monday 8th April 2019

More detailed information on the projects is available here.