This PhD project investigates the causal consequences of physical health shocks, primarily using linked administrative registers. Employing modern causal inference methods—staggered-adoption difference-in-differences and event-time models—the thesis will estimate the short- and medium-run effects of these shocks on employment, working hours, and transitions to disability or early retirement. It will also examine how job characteristics (e.g. cognitive load, physical strain, telework potential) and social-insurance features (e.g. waiting periods, benefit generosity) mediate these effects, and how outcomes vary by gender, education, and migrant status.

The supervisor for this topic is associate professor Štěpán Mikula. Detailed information about the supervisor, his publications and research projects can be found here.

This PhD project examines the causal effects of information provision on individual decision-making and behavioral responses within the health domain. It investigates how information provision, information content, and source credibility influence health-related choices, risk perceptions, and trust in information. Key research questions concern the effects of information on perceived health risks, willingness to vaccinate, and compliance with preventive behaviors. Employing survey experiments and complementary experimental designs, the study will identify behavioral mechanisms through which informational interventions shape attitudes and actions in controlled settings. The findings are expected to contribute to theoretical and empirical understanding of information processing in health contexts and inform the design of evidence-based communication strategies.

The supervisor for this topic is associate professor Rostislav Staněk. Detailed information about the supervisor, his publications and research projects can be found here.

This PhD project examines how psychosocial outcomes in dementia can be translated into economically meaningful endpoints for reimbursement and policy decision-making. Focusing on moderate to advanced dementia, the project will develop an evidence-based bridge between psychosocial measures (e.g. behavioural symptoms, functional dependence, caregiver burden) and health-economic outcomes such as quality of life, healthcare use, and transitions to formal or institutional care. Using PRISMA-based systematic review methods, the thesis will first map and critically assess all empirical associations between psychosocial and economic outcomes in the literature. Building on this evidence, the student will contribute to the validation of these associations in large European datasets and to their integration into a decision-analytic health-economic model that extrapolates short-term psychosocial effects into long-term cost-effectiveness estimates across countries. The project is embedded in the international JPND consortium DEM-CAPS and combines systematic reviewing, applied econometrics, and health-economic modelling. It offers rigorous training in evidence synthesis, causal and observational data analysis, and structural modelling, with direct relevance for reimbursement policy and resource allocation in dementia care.

The supervisor for this topic is associate professor Jakub Hlávka. Detailed information about the supervisor, his publications and research projects can be found here.