Maastricht University is Looking for a PhD Research Candidate: Impact of climate change on public health

Ednah Carrick October 8, 2024

0 301 4 minutes read

Closing Date: 20 October 2024

Maastricht University is Looking for a PhD Research Candidate: Impact of climate change on public health

Are you interested in Exploring the impact of climate change on public health in Bangladesh through research and innovation? Join Maastricht University as a PhD Research Candidate.

Background

Bangladesh has been a popular and established laboratory for development enhancement and vulnerability eradication experiments. Floods, riverbank erosions, cyclones, and waterlogging repeatedly battered the country. Extreme events and their impacts are very well documented in Bangladesh. Climate change has become a topical interest in the new millennium, and climate change actions have suddenly replaced disaster risk reduction literature. Thus, slowly, global warming became the prominent cause of all climatic onsets without giving much focus to the science of attribution. This research recognises the impact of climate change. However, it is also very critical to understand how climate change is not the whole story but instead plays a role in a complex, interconnected world.

Attributing climate change to health is a new development in Bangladesh’s climate change narratives. Between 2012 and 2016, a public health team at Imperial College London published a few papers connecting climate change, drinking water salinity and the prevalence of preeclampsia among pregnant mothers in the coastal area. These were the pioneer studies on climate change and health in Bangladesh. Over a decade, more than 40 peer-reviewed papers have come out on similar topics, and all of them picked up the idea of this trajectory of cascading effects of climate change on human health without critically reflecting on the science of attribution at different levels. Such a linear understanding of the problem does not represent the natural world and is likely to divert attention in the wrong direction.

For example, salinity intrusion along the coast is a collective outcome of upstream water withdrawal, excessive groundwater extraction for irrigation, failure in river management, inappropriate large engineering structure construction, aggressive expansion of shrimp farming, land subsidence, and sea level rise. However, framing salinity because of climate change nullifies all other causes besides the rise of sea levels. Similarly, the relation between salinity and preeclampsia is not straightforward and linear. Preeclampsia is often triggered by hypertension. However, hypertension does not only surface from a higher content of sodium in one’s body but also can be caused by a combination of environmental, socioeconomic and epigenetic conditions.

The linear identification of the problem misses out on the whole picture and fails to address a holistic approach to intervene in health issues in coastal Bangladesh. Against this backdrop, Maastricht University invite an enthusiastic researcher to develop a further proposal for a PhD project that intends to challenge the simplified version of the existing framework for climate change and health. This project has a particular focus on Bangladesh. However, Maastricht University would be open to any exciting case on climate change and health in other geographic settings.

Job description

You are going to research climate change impacts on health. Maastricht University encourages you to set up a research plan to study a specific health issue of choice.

You will conduct your PhD research, which means finalising the proposal, conducting fieldwork, publishing papers in academic journals and presenting your research at international conferences.
You will be attached to the Department of Health, Ethics and Society at Maastricht University. This means that you will participate in departmental meetings and events.
You will take up some teaching roles in the 2nd and 3rd year of your PhD as agreed with your supervisors.

Requirements

For this PhD Research Candidate position, Maastricht University is expecting to hear from the candidates with a profile described below:

You have a postgraduate degree, preferably in social science, human geography, anthropology, global health, or a related field.
You have interests and/ or substantial experiences in the related field.

You have conceptual clarity on science and technology studies (STS), political economy, political ecology and politics of knowledge concerning climate change and health.
You have knowledge and experience with conducting qualitative research (critical ethnography, participatory approaches, discourse analysis)
Working experience in a global south setting would be an added advantage.

You have strong planning and organising skills
You have excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.
Publication in formal academic outlets would be an added advantage.

What is offered

As a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, you will be employed by the most international university in the Netherlands, located in the beautiful city of Maastricht. In addition, Maastricht University offer you:

Good employment conditions. The position is graded according to UFO profile PhD, with corresponding salary from €2872,00 in the first year and €3670,00 gross per month in the fourth year (based on a full-time employment of 38 hours per week). In addition to the monthly salary, an 8.0% holiday allowance and an 8.3% year-end bonus apply.
An employment contract for a period of 12 months with a scope of 1,0 FTE. Upon a positive evaluation, an extension of 3 years will follow.

You will receive a monthly commuting and internet allowance for this. If you work full-time, you will be entitled to 29 vacation days and 4 additional public holidays per year, namely carnival Monday, carnival Tuesday, Good Friday, and Liberation Day. If you choose to accumulate compensation hours, an additional 12 days will be added. Furthermore, you can personalize your employment conditions through a collective labor agreement (CAO) choice model.
The University offers various other excellent secondary employment conditions. These include a good pension scheme with the ABP and the opportunity for UM employees to participate in company fitness and make use of the extensive sports facilities offered to its students.