PhD Studentship: Evaluating the Use of Longitudinal Over-the-counter Healthcare Sales Data as a Source of Syndromic Surveillance for Community-based Infections

UK Health Security Agency and Nottingham University Business School

The mission of the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is to provide health security for England by protecting the population from infectious diseases and other hazards. UKHSA does this by monitoring infectious disease trends and outbreaks using systems that collect information over time and allow unusual changes to be detected.

As a result, UKHSA’s Real-time Syndromic Surveillance Team are working with N/LAB at the Nottingham University Business School to explore whether we can use anonymised sales of pharmacy over-the-counter (OTC) medicines as a source of syndromic surveillance for diseases in the community. N/LAB is a centre of excellence, developing and applying innovative research in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Behaviour in projects targeting social good. Research at N/LAB focuses on the development and application of innovative computational methods using Big Data, Behavioural Science and Machine Learning to understand behaviour through the lens of digital footprint/“smart data” datasets, cutting across sectors ranging through health, retail, mobility, energy and communications.

Using GI infections as a case study, the project will compare trends in OTC medication sales to other UKHSA surveillance datasets to see if OTC sales can be used to monitor GI infection activity and better predict outbreaks. The PhD offers the unique opportunity to develop skills in analytical, statistical and data science techniques, working with real world data to provide recommendations for UKHSA on how pharmacy OTC data could be used for surveillance in the future.

The project will be supported by interdisciplinary supervision team at the Nottingham University Business School and UKHSA. The successful candidate will spend around 75% of their time working at UKHSA (Birmingham) and 25% at the Nottingham University Business School.

Qualifications:

Applicants must hold or expect to hold a first or upper second-class honours degree (or equivalent), or a Master’s degree from a relevant discipline with a substantial quantitative component (such as medical/biomedical sciences, epidemiology, public health, health data science). Experience or interest in working in public health or epidemiology or similar is desirable. Knowledge and evidenced experience of data science analytical packages and R or Python would be advantageous.

Funding

The funding covers the tuition fees and provides an annual stipend for three years (currently at £25,439 for 2025-2026).

Applications and interviews:

For more information or questions about this PhD please contact nicola.love@ukhsa.gov.uk.

To be considered for this PhD please send a copy of your CV and a personal statement up to 500 words explaining your suitability and experience to-date to nicola.love@ukhsa.gov.uk.

The application deadline is 23:59 hours on Monday 14^th July 2025. Please note we may close this opportunity early if we fill the position.

Interviews will be held after the application deadline. In-person interviews are preferred and will be held at the UKHSA offices in central Birmingham (23 Stephenson Street B2 4BH). To determine suitability of candidates an analytical test may be undertaken.

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