Position Offer: Post-doc in Pharmacoepidemiology (12 month duration)
Project DRUGS-REWIND
DRUGS-REgulation: Withdrawal Impact aNd Determinants - DRUGS-REWIND
Starting date: as soon as possible
Post-doctoral residency supervisor
Antoine Pariente,
Inserm U657 “Pharmacoepidemiology and Population Impact of Drugs”
antoine.pariente@u-bordeaux.fr
tel: +33 (0)5 57 57 15 60 / +33 (0)5 57 57 95 11
Missions and Objectives of the Post-Doctoral residency in Pharmacoepidemiology
The residency objective, within the DRUGS-REWIND project, is the contribution to study design and
the conduct of the statistical analyses allowing assessing the population health impact of regulatory
actions identified a priori using electronic healthcare databases. The elaboration of the list of
regulatory actions that will be evaluated is still ongoing. It will mostly include withdrawal decisions
and actions, but can also integrate other types of actions.
Required competencies and expertise
We are looking for a junior researcher who would have, developed and demonstrated skills in
pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacoepidemiologic analyses of electronic healthcare databases
during her/his PhD. The applicant will necessarily have demonstrated her/his ability for scientific
writing.
Knowledge and experience in the use of the French Health Insurance Databases will constitute an
advantage. Applicants without such expertise will have the opportunity to acquire it during their
residency if they were selected.
Applicants will need to be trained in the use of SAS software and in the use of time-series techniques.
DRUGS-REWIND scientific context and objective
Scientific context
Regulation actions concerning drugs are undertaken with the aim of improving population health
while containing, as much as possible, costs for communities. Two broad types of actions can be
distinguished: those leading to market access or enlargement, and those leading to market shrinkage
or withdrawal. Actions related to market enlargement/access are usually motivated by the potential
benefit associated with drug efficacy, whereas those related to market shrinkage are motivated by
safety concerns. The public health impact of these regulatory actions has rarely been investigated.
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As the drug market is the product of political and societal construct, determinants of regulatory
actions exceed by far the sole information brought by Evidence-Based Medicine which, despite being
supposed to provide scientific background for these decisions, can be of marginal importance in
these decisions. The influence of the drug environment and different health stakeholders in the
discussions leading to drug regulatory actions, the functioning of drug regulatory agencies, and the
final content of regulatory actions concerning drugs will be studied.
Concomitantly, for regulatory actions that have been implemented in recent years, an assessment of
population health impact will be performed, in addition to the usual study of changes to
drug/healthcare patterns of use.
Objectives
(1) To understand the emergence of public health questions related to drugs as society concerns
(2) To study the governance of drug regulatory agencies, their functioning, and the process leading
to the structuration of the regulatory decisions or recommendations for drug use.
(3) To study the impact of regulatory decisions on drug use and population health.
DRUGS-REWIND Academic context: The Université de Bordeaux HEADS initiative (Health
Determinants in Societies)
The Université de Bordeaux launched this initiative in 2014. Its objective is to promote
transdisciplinary research in healthcare; it consists of supporting the planning of seminars, learning
programmes, and research projects, some of which it can fund. The DRUGS-Rewind project is one of
four research projects that were selected to benefit from the Université de Bordeaux HEADS
initiative.
A trandisciplinary approach is essential to investigate adequately the research questions related to
DRUGS-REWIND objectives. Consequently, the whole research project will be conducted in
collaboration by researchers in pharmacoepidemiology, political sciences, and economy.
Two post-doc positions are proposed (one in Pharmacoepidemiology, one in Political sciences and
economy) for a duration of eighteen months each. In addition to her/his specific research objectives,
each post-doc researcher will be given the opportunity to contribute to the joined achievements
planned in the project.
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