PhD researcher ?Socioeconomic health disparities in adolescence and young adulthood' (0.8 - 1.0 FTE)

The PhD project will be conducted within the research programme Youth in Changing Cultural Context (programme leaders: prof. dr. C. Finkenauer and prof. dr. W. Vollebergh) at the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science at Utrecht University.

Research has clearly indicated that socioeconomic position is strongly associated with (mental) health and life outcomes. The reasons behind this association are complex. The origins of socioeconomic health disparities are best studied in adolescence, when young people may move out of the socioeconomic position of their parents and move into their own socioeconomic position. It is the main aim of this proposal to disentangle the complex processes leading to socioeconomic health disparities in a comprehensive model, and thus contribute to more in-depth understanding of the outcomes in young adulthood. We will use the data of the TRAILS cohort study, following up a large cohort of adolescents from age 11 to age 27.

The PhD project is embedded within the research Consortium on Individual Development that is funded by an NWO Gravitation grant. The current PhD project uses data from the TRAILS cohort study. This cohort study is a comprehensive, long-term longitudinal study that focuses on adolescent development with a special focus on the development of mental health and adolescent risk behaviours.