Incorporating social preferences into public health policy decision-making using Multi-Criteria Decision Modelling (MCDM) approaches

About the Project

Traditional MCDM uses preferences elicited directly from the participating stakeholders within the decision support process. However, these stakeholder preferences may or may not align with the social preferences that members of the public hold.

Furthermore, there is often resistance from policy actor stakeholders to contribute their own preferences and judgements to the MCDM process.

As a result, traditional MCDM is not used as often as it might otherwise be.

One possibility is to use preferences elicited from members of the public taking a social perspective as citizens (as opposed to a personal perspective as private consumers) and to develop a new protocol to incorporate these into a formal MCDM process for use in public policy decision making.

This PhD will explore the possibility of such an approach and test it in a real-world case study in public health.

Aim: to explore methods of incorporating public preferences into public health policy decision making using Multi-Criteria Decision Modelling

Objectives:

• Review and assess how decision support tools based on traditional MCDM have been used to incorporate pre-existing public preferences external to the MCDM stakeholders
• Review and assess how the quality and reliability of public preferences can be addressed
• Design new or adapted MCDM protocol or methods to incorporate public preferences into public policy decision making with multiple potentially conflicting objectives
• Apply these to relevant problem in public health

Entry Requirements:

Candidates must have a good master's degree (merit or distinction) in economics, quantitative psychology, operational research, engineering, or related field.

How to apply:

Please complete a University Postgraduate Research Application form available here: www.shef.ac.uk/postgraduate/research/apply

Please clearly state the prospective main supervisor in the respective box and select (School of Medicine & Population Health) as the department.

Enquiries:

Interested candidates should in the first instance contact Aki Tsuchiya (a.tsuchiya@sheffield.ac.uk)

Funding Notes

Funding source: Division of Population Health (previously ScHARR) matched funding towards Research Project 182430 Policy Modelling for Health, Population Health Improvement UK Network (PHI-UK)

Covering: Home student fees (3.5yrs), Stipend at the UKRI rate (3.5yrs), RTSG £940p.a.