Project title: Socio-economic determinants of health and the role of policies
Application date: 15 September 2025
Starting date: A start date of January 2026 is envisaged for this studentship
Supervisor: Matteo Richiardi
Project details:
Policy Modelling for Health, formerly known as Enhancing Policy Modelling, is a £7.5 million research consortium funded as part of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Population Health Improvement Network (PHI-UK), launched in March 2024. Directed by Prof. Petra Meier at the University of Glasgow, this extensive multidisciplinary team includes researchers, professional services staff, and policy partners from ten organisations including our team at the University of Essex. The aim of the research programme is to address the economic determinants of health and health inequalities and supporting the development and implementation of high-impact, established and innovative population-level policies using complex systems approaches to policy modelling. Economic conditions are intrinsically linked with population health and health inequality outcomes, while an unhealthy population limits the available workforce and productivity, threatening economic prosperity. Our aim is to better understand causal links and unfolding dynamics of economic conditions and health and health inequalities to improve population health interventions for system change. Our objective is to produce a robust evidence base on the potential health benefits or harms of policy choices and their societal distribution. Key policy areas of interest concern taxes, welfare, employment opportunities, and housing.
A main focus of the research programme is the developing innovative computational models for public health, designed to provide timely and effective support to real-world policy processes aimed at addressing the economic determinants of ill health and health inequalities.
To this aim, the programme is contributing to the development of the open-source SimPaths dynamic microsimulation framework (Bronka et al., 2025), addressing key elements of population heterogeneity and life course domains (gender, age, education, ethnicity, household structure, income and wealth, physical and mental health, disability). SimPaths is unique in modelling the co-evolution of health and economic inequalities and the impact of policies, including rich behavioural models on key margins of interest (such as employment and savings) as impacted by the incentives provided by the tax-benefit system (the model is linked to the underlying tax-benefit calculator UKMOD, see van de Ven et al., 2023). SimPaths is written in Java using the JAS-mine simulation libraries (Richiardi and Richardson, 2017).
As part of this research programme, the Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis (CeMPA) at the Institute for Economic and Social Research (ISER), University of Essex is opening a 3-year fully funded PhD studentship. The successful candidate will work under the supervision of CeMPA Director Prof. Matteo Richiardi, on the intersection of health and economic inequalities and the role of policies. He or she will have the freedom to choose research areas and topics of interest within the scope of the research programme, working in close collaboration with the researchers and model developers at CeMPA as well as the HealthMod team at large. Prerequisites are an interest in computational modelling and a background in Economics, Public Health, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, or computational Life Sciences. Knowledge of Java or other generic programming languages (such as Python, R, Julia) is desirable, although a proved attitude to learning computational skills would also be accepted.
This studentship is offered as a 3-year award (PhD only) in Applied Social and Economic Research / Sociology, based in ISER, for Home or International students.
- It may be taken full-time or part-time
- The studentship award covers your university fees, and provides you with a stipend of £20,870 per year (current rate for 25-26, future years based on updated UKRI rates)
- The appointed candidate will also be able to apply for small amounts (up to £750 per year) of additional funding via the Research Training Support Grant
How to apply for this studentship:
Candidates will need to apply for a place on the ISER PhD Applied Social and Economic Research through the University of Essex’s online application portal by 15 September 2025, mentioning the studentship in the application,