Application are invited for 3 post-graduate sponsored studentships in the
Department of Community Health and General Practice, Trinity College Dublin.


1. Ph.D. - Methodology for Health Impact Assessment

It is now recognised that most of the influences on public health do not
lie within the health sector, and that the health of the public may be
influenced by many areas of public policy which have not traditionally been
assessed for their health impact Š this has led to the development of
Health Impact Assessment in the United Kingdom.  HIA is broadly defined "as
an approach to assessing the impacts on health of policies, programmes and
projects with a view to minimising the negative impacts and enhancing the
positive impacts."

This research project aims to:
Evaluate HIA models and establish a statistical framework for HIA in Ireland.
Apply the framework to selected projects. This will include the development
and application of Bayesian spatio-temporal hierarchical models as well as
full stochastic system simulation models. The candidate will be working in
association with post-graduate researchers in a newly established Institute
of  Urban Studies.



2. MSc - Hospital casemix analysis

Hospitals receive funding on the basis of their casemix which depends on a
complicated formula that considers clinical procedures delivered, length of
stay in hospital and patient characteristics.  The project is to undertake
a detailed investigation of the effects of the current methodology for
dealing with length of stay outliers in the casemix model.  Different
approaches are taken with respect to short stay and long stay outliers, and
the methods affect the amount of 'casemix credit' attached to individual
hospital stays. A range of other methodologies are used elsewhere and a
review of the outlier handling algorithms is considered essential from the
point of view of appropriateness and equity.  A successful result for such
a project would be to arrive at conclusions on the adequacy and/or
deficiency of the present approach and to recommend alterations to the
model.


3. MSc - Research into Renal and Transplant Outcomes

Renal transplantation is a scarce resource, and in order that we can be
certain that the facility is being put to good use, results must be
formally analysed to compare and contrast outcomes by different modes of
therapy.   Currently, the National Kidney Unit at the Beaumont Hospital in
Dublin is responsible for renal replacement therapy for approximately 1,000
patients.  All data pertaining to these patients, including detailed
clinical histories and long-term follow-up, are computerised.

These data require specialist analysis to address a series of questions
relating to trends in mode of therapy in relation to outcome:  appropriate
planning of services requires knowledge of the growth in the need for
service; improvement in patient outcome can be facilitated by a better
understanding of therapies that demonstrate survival advantage; and cost
containment can be achieved by analysing therapies that are equally
effective for less cost.    This project will demand the application of a
range of modern biostatistical techniques for the analysis of large,
complex clinical data sets.


Applicants should have a good honours degree with statistics and/or
mathematics.  Registration will be for the coming academic year beginning
September 2000.

Funding: the studentships are worth between £6,500 and £8,000 per annum.
Fees will be paid.

Interested candidates should send a CV to Dr. Alan Kelly, Department of
Community Health and General Practice, Trinity College, Dublin 2, or
preferably by email to [log in to unmask]

For an informal chat contact me by email or phone (353-1-6081087 or
353-1-6081385)

The Department of Community Health & General Practice is part of the School
of Physic within the Faculty of Health Sciences at Trinity College, Dublin.
(http://www.tcd.ie/Community_Health/)
The department embraces multidisciplinary research in the fields of
epidemiology, biostatistics, public health, primary care and health
services reasearch.  The successful candidates will join with existing
postgrads working on a range of clinical and public health research
projects. http://www.tcd.ie/Community_Health/SAHRU/sahruprojects.html


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