New PhD studentship offers opportunity to use data from the Millennium Cohort Study

The Bloomsbury Colleges consortium is offering a PhD studentship that will explore the relationship between children’s physical activity and mental health using data from the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS).

The Children’s Physical Activity And Mental Health studentship will aim to identify how exercise can lead to better mental health, for example by increasing children’s self-esteem. It will also assess whether physical activity is especially beneficial for particular groups of children.

The MCS has gathered a wealth of information on mental health, measured when the children were 3, 5, 7 and 11 years old. Data from the age 11 survey will be available in early 2014. The children’s physical activity was measured at age 7, when they were asked to wear movement monitors for a week and remove them only when they went to bed or bathed.

The successful candidate will be supervised by Professor Eirini Flouri at the Institute of Education (IOE) and Professor Steven Cummins at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). The closing date for applications is 14 March 2014.

The Bloomsbury Colleges consortium brings together five University of London colleges, including the IOE and LSHTM as well as Birkbeck, the Royal Veterinary College and the School of Oriental and African Studies. The consortium is offering 10 PhD studentships starting in 2014. They encompass a wide range of topics spanning the social and biomedical sciences.

Visit the Bloomsbury Colleges website for candidate requirements and details on how to apply