Medical Research Foundation Fund (MRFF) Grant: The Power of Parents: Co-Designing Health Communications To Reduce Adolescent Drinking

We are seeking an outstanding candidate for a PhD scholarship to undertake a program of research within a broader MRFF Grant entitled “The power of parents: co-designing health communications to reduce adolescent drinking”. This exciting project is led by Professor Jacqueline Bowden, Director of the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NCETA) at Flinders University.

The overall project aims to target harmful adolescent alcohol consumption by co-designing and testing a suite of health communications to reduce parental supply (the main suppliers) of alcohol to adolescents. Within this project, the PhD student will investigate the impacts on sub-populations within the study samples and identify characteristics that promote or hinder the outcomes of a secondary supply prevention intervention.

This PhD scholarship will be based at NCETA, Flinders University, Adelaide (principal supervisor Prof Jacqueline Bowden). Associate supervision will be provided by national alcohol policy research expert Dr Ashlea Bartram, NCETA and two senior chief investigators from the team.

The scholarship includes:

• a stipend valued at $33,900* per annum tax free (2024 full-time rate, indexed annually)
• The scholarship will be awarded for three years
• a Research Training Program Fee Offset Scholarship to cover tuition fees for Australian Citizens, NZ Citizens and Permanent Residents.

To be eligible for the award of this scholarship a student must:

• Be an Australian citizen; or New Zealand citizen; or have been granted permanent resident status; and
• meet PhD admission requirements including: have an Australian Honours degree Class 1 or 2A or equivalent qualification (at least AQF Level 8), including a research component of at least 6 months’ full-time study achieving Distinction (75%) OR including evidence of equivalent research experience, such as a substantial first-author refereed publication or track record as an investigator on a competitive grant; and
• be available to commence as a full-time PhD student at Flinders University in semester 1, 2025;

It is desirable for applicants to have:

• Experience in quantitative data analysis
• Experience in public health and/or drug and alcohol research.