PhD Scholarships in Public Health and Health Services

3x PhD Scholarships

Department of Global Health and Equity
Full time, fixed term positions at our Hawthorn campus
Stipend of $33,500 per annum

About the Scholarships

Swinburne University of Technology is thrilled to announce three fully funded 3-year PhD scholarships in Public Health and Health Services, offered through the Centre for Global Health and Equity. This opportunity invites passionate individuals to join a team at the cutting-edge of public health research which is dedicated to generating transformative research initiatives that enhance health and equity both in Australia and globally. The Centre tackles critical challenges across diverse settings, including community health, services, and policy, with a multidisciplinary approach that spans public health sciences, psychometrics, program evaluation, and medical anthropology. If you’re eager to make a real impact and contribute to innovative research, we encourage you to apply.

The Centre particularly seeks scholars with a passion for reducing inequity, achieving research excellence, and aims to recruit individuals who seek to become public health leaders.

The three scholarships offered are outlined below:

• Health Literacy Development: evaluation and scale-up
  Broad topic area: Where, for whom, and why is Ophelia having public health impacts: determinants of reach, sustainability and scale-up.
  Ophelia (Optimising Health Literacy and Access) is a widely used process that enables diverse teams to build and implement health literacy informed actions that are needed, wanted and implementable. This project will focus on the evaluation of the first 10 years of the implementation of the Ophelia process. Using contemporary evaluation techniques, including quantitative and qualitative methods and Realist Synthesis, this project will evaluate the processes and impacts of Ophelia projects in a wide range of settings and countries. Using this knowledge, the candidate may also be involved in the prospective implementation and evaluation of Ophelia projects to determine implementation fidelity and to make recommendations for improvement.


• Health Literacy Development: Advancing measurement and impact
  Broad topic area: New approaches to building, applying and evaluating health literacy development questionnaires to generate evidence-based local and national recommendations.
  This project will begin through a systematic review of validity evidence of health literacy development questionnaires to provide global stakeholders with comprehensive evidence of their use and potential impact, and to improve how they are built. Building on established foundations of validity evidence, the project will embark on the exploration of new ways for national governments to express the use and usefulness of the measurement of health literacy dimensions to affect practice, system, and policy changes. This project will include data gathering from a range of stakeholders and will apply quantitative (especially contemporary psychometric methods), qualitative, health economic and other techniques as required. The overall aim will be to develop new methods that enable the findings from self-report questionnaires to have more appropriate, meaningful and useful impacts on health and equity in Australia and internationally.


• Health Literacy Development: Advancing public health intervention development at scale
  Broad topic area: Understanding and operationalising co-design of public health interventions to improve health equity.
  Overall, this project will tap into the wisdom of community members and health workers to improve program and intervention impacts on health and equity. The design of public health interventions using community-based engagement and co-design typically generates a wide range of actions that are likely to be effective across 1) individual knowledge and behaviour, 2) family and community engagements with health information and services, and 3) practitioner behaviour and organisational responses to community health literacy needs. This project will uncover new ways to understand and document the connections between program (intervention) processes and effects using cultural, linguistic, qualitative and quantitative research methods. There has been little research on the mechanisms and processes that either explicitly or implicitly generate impacts on health outcomes. Researchers and implementers generally do not pay much attention to the micro, meso, and macro mechanisms that determine the effectiveness of their interventions. The project may culminate in mapping the step-by-step knowledge and understanding that program implementers gain over the course of their projects. The project will include developing ways to strengthen implementers’ capabilities to articulate and report mechanisms that improve health outcomes and equity. This project may also include new digital technologies (such as machine learning).

About you

To be successful in the role, you will have:

• A bachelor’s degree honours and/or a research master’s degree in a discipline relevant to the research topic (or equivalent)
• International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or equivalent (e.g., Pearson Test of English (PTE) examination certificate with a minimum overall score of 6.5 with no individual band score below 6.0)
• Skills and willingness to undertake evaluation and experimental research that advances the evaluation and health literacy fields and meets the needs of the project
• Proficiency in data analysis techniques using qualitative software (e.g., NVivo) and/or relevant statistical programs (e.g., R, Stata)
• Demonstrated strong social and adaptive communication skills to interact with a range of people from community, government, non-government and the university sector.

A full list of selection criteria is available within the position description.

About Swinburne University of Technology

Swinburne Horizon 2025 draws upon our understanding of future challenges. With this new strategic plan, we choose to build Swinburne as the prototype of a new and different university – one that is truly of Technology, of Innovation and of Entrepreneurship, and proud of it. We are committed to a differentiated university proposition in education and research, so that:

• Every Swinburne learner gets a work experience
• Every Swinburne graduate gets a job
• Every Swinburne partner gets a tech solution
• Swinburne is the prototype of global best practice

The achievement of our 2025 moon shots depends on our capacity to work collectively, always, as One Swinburne.

To Apply

Please submit your CV and cover letter addressing your suitability for this position.

To review the Position Description and to apply, please scroll down to the bottom of the page.

If you are viewing this advert from an external site, please click ‘apply’ and you will be redirected to Swinburne’s Jobs website to access the Position Description at the bottom of the page.

For more information about the role, please email Richard Osborne at globalhealthandequity@swin.edu.au

Please Note: Appointment to this position is subject to passing a Working with Children Check.

If you are experiencing technical difficulties with your application, please contact the Swinburne Talent Acquisition Team on staffrecruitment@swin.edu.au.

Applications Close: Monday 4th November 2024, at 11pm.

Swinburne offers flexible working options contained in our leave and parenting/carer policies to support work-life balance.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Swinburne University of Technology is dedicated to creating a varied, welcoming, and open learning and work environment that embraces diversity, promotes inclusion, ensures fair access to opportunities, and actively opposes bullying, discrimination, sexual harm, victimisation, and vilification. We appreciate every individual in our community, regardless of ability/disability, age, cultural and ethnic background, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and family and relationship status. For further details on our efforts, please explore our Equity & Diversity website.

Disability and Reasonable Adjustments

Swinburne University of Technology actively supports and encourages individuals with disability to apply. We provide reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment and selection process by ensuring that we cater to the access and participation needs of all candidates.

For a confidential discussion regarding accessibility requirements, or to provide feedback on how we can continue to improve our recruitment processes to better accommodate adjustments you require, please reach out to staffrecruitment@swin.edu.au or call at +61 3 9214 5802.

Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) at Swinburne

Swinburne is enhancing gender equity and diversity, with a focus on science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM), by participating in the Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) program.

Swinburne University is actively engaged in improving representation and participation of women in STEMM fields, aiming to address ongoing gender inequity. As an inaugural recipient of the Athena SWAN Institutional Bronze Award, we have implemented our original SAGE Action Plan (2019-2021) and continue our commitment through the current SAGE Action Plan (2022-2025), focusing on meaningful actions to foster long-lasting change and advance gender equity and diversity in STEMM.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Applicants

We welcome and strongly encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

For any support please contact staffrecruitment@swin.edu.au or for more information on our Indigenous strategies please follow the link to our RAP Reconciliation Action Plan.

Victoria’s Commitment to Action: Improving international student employment outcomes

As a signatory to Victoria’s Commitment to Action, Swinburne seeks to remove barriers to international graduate employment. We welcome and encourage applications from international graduates.