PhD Scholarship in UK

Bloomsbury Colleges PhD Studentship

The Bloomsbury Colleges are a consortium of six University of London colleges comprising Birkbeck, Institute of Education, Royal Veterinary College, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, School of Oriental and African Studies and The School of Pharmacy.

Applications are invited for a three-year PhD studentship, to start October 2010. The studentship will cover course fees (at the usual level for UK and EU studentships) and a student stipend.

Please be aware that non-EU applicants will be liable for paying the difference between Home/EU and overseas PhD fees. Click here for details of the Tuition Fees 2010-11.

Social and educational determinants of sexual partner choice and HIV risk among young women in South Africa

Investigator: James Hargreaves (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)
Collaborator: Richard Wiggins (Institute of Education)

Project Outline

In Sub-Saharan Africa, most new HIV infections among young women are acquired from their male sexual partners via heterosexual transmission. Understanding the determinants of sexual partnership formation and risk behaviour within those partnerships is essential to guide HIV prevention efforts in the region.

Young South African women tend to form relationships with partners who are a few years older than themselves and who are from a similar socioeconomic background. Within partnerships, condom use may be more common early in relationships, but then be dispensed with over time as trust grows between partners1. It remains unclear what factors, including the social networks in which young people are embedded, affect sexual partner choice or risk behaviours within partnerships; whether school attendance or practice influences these decisions; and how these factors influence both the overall burden and level of inequality in HIV infection rates.

Aims

The aim of this studentship is to identify factors that influence sexual partnership formation and HIV risk within these partnerships, with a particular focus on social networks, educational institutions and life transitions.

Research Questions

1. To describe characteristics of sexual partnerships involving young women in rural South Africa.

2. To assess how characteristics of partnerships change in association with growing up and school leaving.

3. To assess the influence of key factors including the social network and educational factors on partnership characteristics.

4. To assess how sexual partnership characteristics influence HIV risk.

Methodology

This studentship will benefit from being nested within a randomised controlled trial of the influence of conditional cash transfers on school attendance and HIV risk among young South African women. This study is funded by the US National Institutes of Health, and is itself nested within a Demographic Surveillance Site – the Agincourt DSS - in northeast South Africa. More details of the trial are available from the lead supervisor on request.
The student will design data collection tools for implementation within the trial surveys, conduct new fieldwork in South Africa during the second year of the PhD and analyse the data for their thesis, drawing principally on the theory and methods of social epidemiology and social network analysis. Some experience in these methods will be an advantage though opportunities for further training will also be available during the PhD.