NDARC offers scholarships to students who wish to undertake higher degree research (HDR) on drug and alcohol-related projects that align with NDARC’s core Workplan areas:
- Prevention and early intervention
- Clinical research
- Physical and mental comorbidity
- Epidemiology of substance use and harms
- Justice health and drug policy
- Indigenous health
- Health economics and biostatistics
- Family, communities and society
For more information please visit Scholarships at NDARC.
HDR projects currently seeking students
Project title: Gender and changes in alcohol use and perceptions
Primary supervisor: Dr Amy Peacock
Co-supervisors: Wing See Yuen
Project description:
Recent trends show that alcohol use has declined overall across the population across high-income countries, but appears to vary by gender and age. In Australia, males younger than 50 years have shown notable declines across any drinking, lifetime risky drinking, and single-occasion risky drinking. On the other hand, trends amongst females vary widely by age group (e.g., single-occasion risky drinking has increased in females over 40, is stable in females aged 25 to 39, and has declined rapidly in females aged 14 to 24). The drivers of these gendered trends in alcohol use are currently unclear. Research undertaken as part of this project could include:
- Reviewing existing evidence regarding gendered changes in alcohol use, reasons for using/not using alcohol, and perceptions of alcohol use.
- Assessing differences in knowledge regarding the health risks associated with alcohol.
- Investigating possible gendered trends in alcohol-related harm.
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in psychology, public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, or a related field.
- Strong skills in quantitative analysis.
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
For more information about this project, please contact Amy.Peacock@unsw.edu.au
For more information about this project, please contact Wing See Yuen (w.yuen@unsw.edu.au).
Project title: Assessing the impact of drug checking (‘pill-testing’) services in Australia and internationally
Primary supervisor: Dr Amy Peacock
Co-supervisors: Anna Olsen (ANU), Raimondo Bruno (UTAS)
Project description:
There is increasing public support for provision of drug checking (‘pill-testing’) services, and some progress in the planning and establishment of such services in Australia. Despite a range of drug checking services operating globally, there is a need for further evidence of the feasibility and effectiveness of different drug checking models in the Australian context. The supervisory team are involved in the evaluation of the first fixed-site drug checking service in Australia. Through this PhD, the candidate will work with the team to gather new evidence and inform policy through a range of possible projects, including:
- systematic reviews of evidence around engagement in drug checking by people who use drugs
- analysing data from interviews and surveys with people accessing drug checking services
- analysing data from interviews and surveys with people who use drugs around their drug checking and broader harm reduction practices
- analysing other novel data sources (e.g., social and news media data) on drug checking
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in psychology, public health, epidemiology, biostatistics, or a related field.
- Strong skills in quantitative or qualitative data analysis.
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
For more information about this project, please contact Amy.Peacock@unsw.edu.au
For more information about this project please contact Amy Peacock (amy.peacock@unsw.edu.au)
Project title: Understanding and preventing substance-related deaths in Australia
Primary supervisor: Dr Natasa Gisev
Project description: Substance-related deaths due to medicines, alcohol and other drugs, have risen over the last 15 years in Australia and internationally. These deaths are often underpinned by complex social and health factors, including mental and physical health co-morbidity. Importantly, these deaths are largely avoidable given timely and targeted intervention. However, there is currently limited understanding of the drivers of these deaths and mechanisms for prevention. The candidate will undertake a range of studies using data from national population-based sources and cohorts formed from linked administrative data to address these gaps and inform strategies for harm prevention.
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in public health, epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, biostatistics or a related field
- Strong skills in quantitative analysis, with experience using linked administrative data highly regarded
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
For more information about this project please contact Dr Natasa Gisev (n.gisev@unsw.edu.au).
Project title: Awareness of, and responses to, drug alerts about higher-risk substances
Primary supervisor: Dr Amy Peacock
Project description: Due to the unregulated nature of the illicit drug market, people are often unaware of substance contents. Some public health agencies and other organisations disseminate ‘drug alerts’ (i.e., communication about significant unique or pervasive health risks of a specific substance; see example here) to increase awareness of risk of harm and promote harm reduction behaviour. However, there is a distinct lack of research regarding people who use drugs and their preferences for communication of these alerts, as well as the potential intended and unintended behavioural responses to alerts. Research undertaken as part of this PhD could include: reviewing existing evidence regarding responses to risk communication about harms of illicit drugs; assessing awareness of, and responses to, drug alerts disseminated by public health agencies; and gathering information from people who disseminate drug alerts and from people who use drugs to inform design of future alerts.
CANDIDATE REQUIREMENTS
- Masters or Honours in psychology, public health, epidemiology, or a related field
- Strong skills in quantitative analysis
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
For more information about this project please contact: Amy Peacock (amy.peacock@unsw.edu.au). Note this PhD could commence from Term 2 (i.e., May) 2022 onwards.
Project title: Quantifying pharmaceutical misuse and harms among older adults
Primary supervisor: Dr Natasa Gisev
Joint supervisor: Professor Michael Farrell
Secondary supervisor: Dr Amy Peacock
Project description: There is global concern regarding escalating pharmaceutical misuse among older adults. Negative impacts on global health burden and healthcare utilisation may be exacerbated by the complex healthcare needs of the growing ageing population. Currently, the extent and drivers of pharmaceutical misuse among older adults and related harms, and their comorbidity with other drug and alcohol problems, are unknown. The candidate will undertake a range of studies using data from population-based sources and linked cohorts [e.g. Data-Linkage Alcohol Cohort Study (~200,00 people) and Opioid Agonist Treatment Safety Study (~50,000 people)] to generate robust evidence addressing these gaps to inform appropriate responses.
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in public health, epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, biostatistics or a related field
- Strong skills in quantitative analysis, with experience using linked administrative data highly regarded
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
For more information about this project please contact Dr Natasa Gisev (n.gisev@unsw.edu.au).
Project title: Quantifying the risks of methamphetamine dependence and interventions to reduce harm
Primary supervisor: Scientia Professor Louisa Degenhardt
Joint supervisor: Associate Professor Rebecca McKetin
Secondary supervisor: Dr Amy Peacock
Project description: Methamphetamine is a global health concern, with harms including psychosis, suicide, violence, stroke, and mortality. These cost Australia ~$5billion per annum. Few data are available on the extent of use, and even fewer on what interventions reduce harms. We lead international efforts to develop estimation methods for prevalence of use and are trialling interventions to reduce harms. This PhD will inform policy response by generating:
- Australian and global estimates of methamphetamine dependence, injecting, and related harms
- Cost-effectiveness estimates for methamphetamine treatment and harm reduction interventions
- Estimates of impacts of novel interventions on the extent of methamphetamine use, dependence and harms
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in public health, epidemiology, bio/statistics or a related field
- Strong skills in quantitative analysis
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
For more information about this project please contact Associate Professor Rebecca McKetin (r.mcketin@unsw.edu.au).
Project title: Perspectives of treatment and support for people who are drug dependent and their families
Primary supervisor: Professor Michael Farrell
Joint supervisor: Dr Julia Lappin
Secondary supervisor: Scientia Professor Louisa Degenhardt
Project description: Substance dependence impacts not only people who are experiencing problems, but their families and communities. Effective treatments such as opioid agonist treatment are available for opioid dependence, but there are few effective options for methamphetamine, and little is known about client and families’ experiences of seeking help. This PhD will explore the barriers and facilitators of substance use therapies from varied perspectives using a mixed method approach. It will explore how to optimise interventions through attaining insights from individuals who consume drugs, their family members, the community, health care workers and service providers.
The PhD will:
- Examine client access to different treatment modalities, and factors influencing exploration of improved delivery systems (including novel depot opioid treatments, which have recently been registered in Australia), through the CoLAB study
- Explore families’ experiences of the onset of problematic use of drugs and their access to models of support for families and carers of people with dependent use
- Explore, using routine data collections on drug treatment, the extent of treatment utilisation and retention in treatment
- Using data from the Family Drug Support program, examine families’ access to this service and their patterns of engagement
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in public health, epidemiology, social sciences or a related field
- Strong skills in quantitative analysis
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
For more information about this project please contact Professor Michael Farrell (Michael.farrell@unsw.edu.au).
Project title: Investigating the risk of harm from prescription opioids using linked data
Primary supervisor: Scientia Professor Louisa Degenhardt
Joint supervisor: Dr Natasa Gisev
Secondary supervisor: Professor Sallie Pearson
Project description: Escalating opioid use/misuse and harms is a global health problem. There is limited population-level evidence about the drivers of long-term prescribed opioid use, dependence, overdose and other harms. The PhD candidate will contribute to a broader program of work (POPPY II) that addresses these gaps.
POPPY II is a retrospective cohort of ~2 million people prescribed opioids in NSW, linked to health service utilisation (primary care, hospitalisations, emergency department presentations) and mortality. Using best practice pharmacoepidemiological methods, the candidate will undertake a range of studies to quantify the risk of harm associated with prescription opioids to inform national and global responses.
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in public health, epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, biostatistics or a related field
- Strong skills in quantitative analysis, with experience using linked administrative data highly regarded
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
For more information about this project please contact Scientia Professor Louisa Degenhardt (l.degenhardt@unsw.edu.au) or Dr Natasa Gisev (n.gisev@unsw.edu.au).
Project title: Text message support for smoking cessation among low-socioeconomic status smokers
Primary supervisor: Dr. Ryan Courtney
Project description: Tobacco is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide and is forecasted to cause over 8 million deaths per year by 2030, if smoking habits remain unchanged. The recent plateau in the rate of decline in Australian smoking rates, combined with a continuing social gradient in smoking cessation, outlines the unprecedented need for innovative and targeted smoking cessation strategies tailored to the most disadvantaged. This project will address this need by evaluating the cost-effectiveness of a tailored and widely scalable text messaging program, in achieving smoking abstinence for low-socioeconomic status smokers in Australia, compared to standard Quitline care.
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in public health, psychology, epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, biostatistics or a related field
- Strong skills in quantitative analysis
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Strong interpersonal skills
- Demonstrated capacity to work independently, as well as collaboratively, to meet team and project deadlines and milestones
- Strong organisational skills
For more information about this project please contact Dr Ryan Courtney (r.courtney@unsw.edu.au).
Project title: Use and safety of prescription drugs of dependence during pregnancy
Primary supervisor: Dr Alys Havard
Project description: Prescription drugs of dependence, which include psychostimulants, opioids and benzodiazepines, are prescription medicines that have therapeutic value but a high potential for misuse, abuse and dependence. Limited evidence exists to guide decisions regarding the potential use of these medicines during pregnancy. This PhD project will investigate the magnitude and patterns of use of prescription drugs of dependence among pregnant women in NSW, and the risk of harm to the mother and baby. These research questions will be investigated linked routinely collected data including birth records, pharmaceutical dispensing data, hospital admissions data, congenital malformation notifications, NAPLAN data and death records.
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in clinical medicine, public health, epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, biostatistics or a related field
- Strong skills in data management and statistical analysis, with experience using large-scale linked data highly regarded
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
For more information about this project please contact Dr Alys Havard (alys.havard@unsw.edu.au).
Project title: Benefits, cost-benefit of Aboriginal residential rehabilitation for substance use treatment
Primary Supervisor: Dr Anh Dam Tran
Joint Supervisor: Professor Anthony Shakeshaft
Secondary Supervisor/s: Dr Anton Clifford-Motopi
Project Description: Aboriginal residential rehabilitation (RR) is more expensive than other conventional substance treatments. It is important to capture the benefits of clients to examine if the additional social benefits are worth the additional costs. There is no study in Australia examining the social benefits in RR. This PhD will link RR data with reoffending database to examine the crime rate after exiting RR, link RR data with admitted patient data collection (APDC) and emergency department data collection (EDDC) to examine the healthcare service use, use the Washington State Institute of Public Policy principles to calculate the benefit-cost ratio (BCR) of residential rehabilitation.
Candidate requirements:
- Masters or Honours in public health, health economics, epidemiology, biostatistics or a related field
- Strong skills in quantitative analysis
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Track record of publication of peer-reviewed scientific articles would be desired
For more information about this project please contact anh.tran@unsw.edu.au