PhD fellow (3 years)

For the project ”Regional Variations in Cancer Survival”, we have the following position available: 

PhD fellow (3 years)

We are looking for a PhD Fellow to study national and international variations in cancer survival. The vision for the health service  is to provide an efficient and equitable service to all citizens, irrespective of age, place of residence, gender, income and ethnicity. To maximally reduce the disparities in the quality of the cancer services given to cancer patients, the degree of inequalities across the above strata needs to be measured and evaluated.

This project will investigate county-wise differences in cancer survival in Norway based on residence at the time of diagnosis for various cancer types, in addition to differences in cancer survival for rectal cancer patients based on place of treatment (hospital).

Developing methods and applying statistical models to identify units with high or low survival will be a pivotal part of the work. Different factors influencing cancer survival will be studied, including socioeconomic factors and stage of disease at diagnosis.

Relative survival for cancers in lower-resource regions such as Africa, Asia and Central-America, are considerably lower than for countries considered more developed, such as Norway. Thus, the project will provide a necessary international perspective on survival comparisons, contrasting the impact of level of resources and subsequent cancer services on survival in a number of high, medium and lower-income settings. This altter part of the project will be performed in collaboration with the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, with a possible opportunity for å shorter research stay at IARC.

• Conditions for the PhD position:
• Applicants must hold a masters degree or equivalent in a relevant field (see below)  
• Experience in an knowledge about statistical methods and modeling 
• Experience in use of statistical software (e.g. R  or Stata) 
• Preferably experience from epidemiology/biostatistics

We primarily apply for candidates with a masters degree in statistics, or candidates with other relevant masters within medicine, social or natural science with experience in statistical modeling

Candidates are also expected to:

• Practice good written and spoken English
• Have substantial analytic skills
• Work in a team (good communication and cooperation skills) 
• Have the ability to work independently

The candidate suitable for the position will be considered through interviews and references.

The Oslo University Hospital initial salary rate is 391.000  NOK per year.
We can offer flexible working hours. Evaluation period 6 months.