Psychiatric epidemiology – Forskningsår på Klinisk Epidemiologisk Afdeling (KEA) med start 01-09-2023
Are you interested in psychiatric register-based epidemiology, and would you like to get research experience?
The research group on psychiatric and social epidemiology at Klinisk Epidemiologisk Afdeling (KEA) is looking for a medical student for a research year starting on 1st of September 2023.
Project
Danish healthcare registers (e.g., hospital register, prescription register) are a gold mine for epidemiology, as the entire Danish population can be used as the study population. However, in psychiatric epidemiology, it is difficult to identify individuals with mental disorders. The Danish Psychiatric Central Research Register is very useful to identify the most severe cases (those that require visits to a psychiatric unit); however, it is not useful to identify milder cases of mental disorders like depression or anxiety. Today, there is no consensus among Danish researchers on the best strategy to identify milder cases of mental disorders using registers (using e.g., prescriptions). The main aim of this research year project will be to describe the different possibilities to identify cases of mental disorders through Danish registers, and propose a strategy to be followed by other researchers in the field. We expect this work to be very important for the field of register-based psychiatric epidemiology and we hope to publish an article in a renowned scientific journal.
About you
We are looking for an ambitious medical student who has finished the bachelor’s degree before the research year starts. There is no need to have previous research experience, but interest in mental disorders and/or epidemiology is necessary.
What can we offer
As a research year student at KEA, you will daily be among many other research year and PhD students. You will work on your own project under the supervision of Oleguer Plana-Ripoll (Associate Professor), and you will also have one PhD student in our group as a co-supervisor. We expect that you will be the first author of an article, which we hope to publish in an international scientific journal. Additionally, there will be the possibility during the research year to participate in national or international conferences, as well as scientific and social meetings within our group.
If you think that sounds like something for you, or you would like to know more about the project, please send an e-mail to Oleguer Plana-Ripoll (opr@clin.au.dk) with a short motivation letter (max 1 page) and a brief CV. These documents can be in Danish, but the working language in our group is English. We will interview candidates on an ongoing basis, so please send us the documents as soon as possible and no later than March 10th 2023.
We look forward to hearing from you!