Researcher in Post-Pandemic Youth Mental Health 

About the position

A researcher position (researcher code SKO 1109) is available at the PROMENTA Research Center, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo. The researcher will be working in the projects “Post-Pandemic Vulnerability and Resilience: A bioecological approach towards youth wellbeing in Nordic schools and communities” (SISU) and “Promoting Resilience and Inclusion: Gender-Inclusive Strategies for Youth Mental Health in Post-Pandemic Nordics” (PRISM) both funded by the NordForsk. 

NordForsk is an organisation under the Nordic Council of Ministers that provides funding for and facilitates Nordic cooperation on research and research infrastructure, and SISU and PRISM are both research consortia between Nordic countries. This project will address how the pandemic effect on mental health for different genders varied over schools and municipalities, and how for genetic vulnerability and resilience factors had differential effects across places.

The appointment is a full time position for a period of up to 18 months with a possibility of extension. 

More about the project

The overall hypothesis is that an increased understanding of factors behind vulnerability and resilience to the pandemic can be the key to reducing the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and thereby improving the well-being of children and young people in a post-pandemic world. The study will address the pressing need to better understand the underlying causes of variations in pandemic consequences for educational, well-being, and mental health outcomes. Our approach is to conceptualize the complex interaction of factors into the bio-ecological framework that emphasizes multiple levels of influence supporting the notion that welfare is affected by various contexts. Identifying factors that affect the post-pandemic outcome at different levels of the framework will help to develop approaches to policy, prevention, and health promotion.

The project is directed at rendering a new understanding of: (1) Country-, community- and school-level influences: To explore how the national policy level, community-level policies and resourcing of services important for young people, and school-level factors, such as school composition and climate, affected the mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and recovery from these effects. (2) Family and peers' relationship-level influences: To determine familial and peer factors associated with the immediate and long-term post-pandemic outcomes among young people. (3) Individual child-level influences: To identify individual factors influencing the effect of the pandemic on mental health, education, and well-being outcomes, with a specific focus on vulnerable groups; and (4) Genes and environment: To explore individual susceptibility to the pandemic environment for mental health, education, and well-being of young people.

Pandemics happen to societies; our bioecological approach addresses this by integrating societal, contextual, developmental, and biological layers of inference. That is, we can, by our intersection of individual dispositions and school and societal environments, render explanations relevant to municipal and national stakeholders forming schools and health services. Moreover, by evaluating both potentially negative and positive aspects of the pandemic environment’s interaction with individual susceptibility, we leave open the question that societal restrictions could be both good and bad depending on the individual child. With our rich contextual measures of psychosocial environments, SISU and PRISM characterize families and schools optimal for psychological development in a global crisis. Our explanatory variables of interest are based on open aggregated information on a municipal level, readily monitorable, and changeable over longer terms by policymakers. We will address societal challenges given by our users in the WHO Healthy Cities Network by presenting the characteristics of communities and schools that were optimal for children’s development during the pandemic. We have, through WHO Healthy Cities, an impact not only on policymakers in the Nordic countries but also on their global network of member cities.

With Norwegian national registries giving full genealogy and year-by-year event data on place of residence, SES, mental health, and educational performance, the researcher will be in the position to consider the entire country since 1940 (n = 9 000 000) including several generations of family relatedness and resulting family genetic scores. Within the registry data, the project nest a population-based cohort study comprising 100 000 genotyped families with a wide array of survey data. This investigation of the interplay between extended social arenas and family factors will help to grasp inequity in mental health.

The researcher position (researcher code SKO 1109) will be based in the GeoGen workgroup at PROMENTA lead by Professor Eivind Ystrøm. The goal of the GeoGen workgroup is to study the interplay between genetic and contextual factors in families, schools, and wider contexts by integrating genotyped family trios into population-based registries on family structure, residence, schools, health, and education. The researcher will be working with GeoGen Team members from Psychology, Economics, Sociology, and Educational Sciences. The Nordic consortium constitutes close collaboration with Karolinska Institute (Sweden), Reykjavik University (Iceland), Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (Finland), and the Norwegian Institute of Public health.
For more information about the position please see contact information below.
 

PROMENTA

The PROMENTA Research Center carries out interdisciplinary research on mental health and well-being in a bioecological perspective - from genetics and biology to local communities and policy. We are concerned with examining determinants of good and poor mental health, understanding how social inequalities emerge, and designing and evaluating effective interventions to promote well-being.

We strive to provide our candidates with opportunities to develop high-quality research competence, across disciplines, working alongside leading experts in our fields. While working for us, you will be part of a dynamic and interdisciplinary work environment, with ample opportunities for scientific and social input throughout the academic year. This includes training in both social science and genetic methods.

The PROMENTA Research Center with more than 50 scientific staff is funded by the Research Council of Norway, and hosted by the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo (UiO). Read more about working at PROMENTA.

Qualifications

Qualification requirements

• Applicants must hold a doctoral degree (Ph.D. or equivalent) in in psychology, genetics, sociology, epidemiology, economics, or other related fields. 
• Strong skills in quantitative methods.
• Proficient oral and written communication skills in English.
• Plans for excellent research within the project, as evidenced by the required one-page letter of application, explaining the motivation for applying and how own qualifications are suitable for the announced position.
   

Favourable qualifications (not requirements, but give applicants an advantage):

• Publication record on the genetics of mental health or relevant COVID-19 studies.
• Skills in relevant genetic data analyses such as GCTA, polygenic scores, GWAS, or family genetic risk scores.
• Familiarity with R, Python, Julia, or other relevant computing languages.
• Experience with register data or other types of big data.
• Training in application of genetic data.
• Experience with multilevel modelling or Structural Equation Modelling
• Experience with twin and different family studies.
• Experience with using geocode data.

Personal skills

• Strong interest in the potential of integrating mental health research, social science, and genetics. 
• Enjoys working within an interdisciplinary team.
• Personal suitability.
   

Employment in the position is based on a comprehensive assessment of all qualification requirements applicable to the position, including personal qualifications.

We need different perspectives in our work 

UiO is an open and internationally oriented comprehensive university that strives to be an inclusive and diverse workplace and academic environment. You can read more about UiO’s work on equality, inclusion, and diversity at uio.no.

We fulfill our mission most effectively when we draw upon our variety of experiences, backgrounds, and perspectives. We are looking for great colleagues—could you be the next one?

We will do our best to accommodate your needs. Relevant adjustments may include modifications to working hours, task adaptations, digital, technical, or physical adjustments, or other practical measures.

If you have an immigrant background, a disability, or CV gaps (Norwegian), we encourage you to indicate this in the job application portal. We always invite at least one qualified candidate from each group for an interview. In this context, disability is defined as an applicant who identifies as having a disability that requires workplace or employment-related accommodations. For more details about the requirements, please refer to the Employer portal (Norwegian).

The selections made in the job application portal are used for anonymized statistics that all state employers include in their annual reports.

More information about gender equality initiatives at UiO can be found here.

We hope you will apply for the position with us. 

We offer

• Exciting and meaningful tasks in an organization with an important societal mission, contributing to knowledge development, education, and enlightenment that promote sustainable, fair, and knowledge-based societal development.
• A professionally stimulating work environment and collaboration with research center PROMENTA at the Department of Psychology.
• Opportunities for extensive collaboration with our national and international collaborators.
• Good welfare schemes.
• Opportunity of up to 1.5 hours a week of exercise during working hours.
• A workplace with good development and career opportunities. 
• Membership in the Statens Pensjonskasse, which is one of Norway's best pension schemes with beneficial mortgages and good insurance schemes.
• Salary in position as Researcher, position code 1109 in salary range NOK from 610.000 – 690.000, depending on competence and experience. From the salary, 2 percent is deducted in statutory contributions to the State Pension Fund.

 

Read more about the benefits of working in the public sector at Employer Portal.

Application

Your application should include:

• Application letter (maximum 1 page)
• CV.
• Copies of up to five peer reviewed publications that the applicant wishes to be considered by the evaluation committee.
• Transcripts and certificates. Diplomas, transcripts and diploma supplements that are not in a Scandinavian language or English must be uploaded in the original language. An English translation of these documents must also be attached.
• Contact information for 2-3 references. One of them must be a PhD supervisor. Also preferably including the supervisors on master thesis.

Application with attachments must be submitted via our recruitment system Jobbnorge, click "Apply for the position".

When applying for the position, we ask you to retrieve your education results from Vitnemålsportalen.no. If your education results are not available through Vitnemålsportalen, we ask you to upload copies of your transcripts or grades. Please note that all documentation must be in English or a Scandinavian language.

General information

The best qualified candidates will invited for interviews.

Applicant lists can be published in accordance with Norwegian Freedom of Information Act § 25. When you apply for a position with us, your name will appear on the public applicant list. It is possible to request to be excluded from this list. You must justify why you want an exemption from publication and we will then decide whether we can grant your request. If we cannot, you will hear from us.

Please refer to  Rules for the use of research posts SKO 1108, 1109, 1110 and 1183 at UiO.

The University of Oslo has a transfer agreement with all employees that is intended to secure the rights to all research results etc.