From Digital Cohort to Co-Designed Intervention: Reducing Dementia Risk in UK South Asian Adults

About the Project

Are you passionate about tackling health inequalities and reducing dementia risk?

This fully funded PhD addresses a critical gap: UK South Asian adults face substantially higher cardiometabolic risk yet remain severely underrepresented in dementia risk reduction research. You will establish the UK's first digital brain health cohort of South Asian adults, through online platforms and trusted community partnerships. Using behavioural science frameworks and culturally appropriate assessment tools, you will investigate how physical activity, diet, and their determinants relate to cognitive health, to help identify key intervention targets. A regional biomarker sub-study will integrate cardiometabolic profiling with dementia-relevant biomarkers, enabling you to examine biological and behavioural pathways to cognition. In the final phase, you will co-design a culturally tailored digital intervention with community partners and conduct a feasibility trial to inform future large-scale implementation.

You will gain expertise in digital cohort methods, physical activity and dietary assessment, biomarker analysis, statistical modelling, and intervention science. Training is delivered through Newcastle University's comprehensive research programmes and specialist workshops. You will have opportunities to learn from established cohort studies, industry collaborators, and international research networks. Support is provided for publishing in high-impact journals, presenting at international conferences, and securing competitive early-career funding.

Based in Newcastle University's School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences and the Human Nutrition and Exercise Research Centre (HNERC), you will join a collaborative, interdisciplinary community with expertise in nutrition, behaviour change, and brain health research. The vibrant postgraduate research community offers weekly co-writing sessions, peer support networks, regular seminar series, and opportunities to present work and develop leadership skills. Existing links to strong community partnerships will help to ensure your research delivers real-world impact.

We welcome applicants from nutrition, psychology, public health, epidemiology, or related disciplines with strong quantitative skills. We particularly welcome applications from candidates with South Asian heritage or lived experience of these communities, or from candidates committed to conducting equitable, culturally sensitive, and community-engaged research that centres the voices and priorities of marginalised populations. This project builds on existing funded work and is designed to generate evidence for a future trial, offering you the chance to lead pioneering research addressing urgent inequalities in dementia risk reduction.

Funding

Students who have, or are expecting to attain, at least an upper second-class honours degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject, are invited to apply. Funding is available for Home (UK) students to cover tuition fees, a tax-free stipend at the UKRI rate (indicative amount in year 1 in 2026-27, £21,805) and research costs, for four years. Applicants normally required to cover International fees will have to cover the difference between the Home and the International tuition fee rates. There is no additional funding available to cover NHS Immigration Health Surcharge (IHS) costs, visa costs, flights etc.

Funding for this studentship is awarded on a competitive basis and is not guaranteed; availability will depend on the outcome of the selection process and subject to final approval by the University.