Position Description
Position Title: Epidemiologist II
Department: Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation
Division/Unit/Section: Epidemiology & Laboratory Capacity Program
Duties and Responsibilities
Position Summary
The CHCC Epidemiologist Team is housed in the Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity (ELC) Program. A heavy focus of this position is to carry out activities in response to the ELC program. It is also expected that the incumbent leverages his/her role to support a corporation-wide approach to health data collection, analysis, interpretation, and policy development.
The CHCC Epidemiologist II is responsible for planning, developing, implementing and evaluating a wide range of investigative and analytical epidemiologic activities; conducts routine and advanced-level professional epidemiologic work comprising of surveillance, data collection, and data analysis using basic and advanced epidemiologic methods and biostatistical analytical techniques; conduct epidemiologic investigations; identifies trends, outbreaks of diseases or other adverse health events; provides and analyzes data to promote and protect public health; and develops the means for prevention and control and/or seek to reduce the risk and occurrence of negative health outcomes through research, community education and health policies in collaboration with other CHCC divisions.
This position requires that individual to work after normal hours, weekends and holidays. This position also requires that the incumbent is fully trained in field of Surveillance (disease investigation and prevention), Emergency Health (preparedness, response & mitigation), and clinical epidemiology (translation of epidemiological data for clinical relevance).
Duties and Responsibilities
The incumbent is involved with planning, directing, and coordinating data related activities within the program areas. Develops and contributes to applicable epidemiologic-focused policies and procedures. Participates on internal and external committees and workgroups related to CHCC program areas. Coordinates state program planning efforts with respect to surveillance and other epidemiologic data and evaluation. Develops and conducts data analysis training for local staff in the conduct of investigations and appropriate methods of disease prevention and control.
Use clinical and laboratory data to support epidemiological activities. Evaluates the ongoing improvement in laboratory testing capability for infectious diseases and develop the capabilities with HIS to help ensure program sustainability in collaboration with the CHCC Lab Director and the CHCC Physician Leadership. Actively participate in program-related projects and activities to develop data-driven programs, policies, and practices to promote health; creates, supports a network of CHCC staff who are involved in various data related tasks to provide capacity development, reinforcement for data analysis, and serves as a mentor and expert consultant.
Epidemiologic Investigations. Plans and conducts epidemiologic investigations and studies to address important and practical public health problems and to plan programs. Identifies and evaluates a wide range of health conditions within an assigned program area to recognize public health problems pertinent to the population. Collaborates with scientists in the survey or investigation design process, including conducting a search or review of existing literature and data in a scientific area, determining methodological techniques and processes, and designing questionnaires and other data-collection instruments. Designs, manipulates, and uses databases for analysis of health problems to assess the potential public health impact. Conducts epidemiologic outbreak investigations; performs onsite review of facilities and procedures; interviews patients, health-care providers, and others involved; and collects data from local agencies or other health entities. Performs statistical analyses related to complex analytical investigations involving highly specialized scientific data. Designs, manipulates, and utilizes databases for analysis of health problems. Uses surveillance systems to collect disease or health outcome data. Generates descriptive analyses of surveillance data for a variety of audiences.
Surveillance Activities. Design, implement, and manage the use of surveillance systems for diseases of public health importance. Identifies program surveillance data needs, designs instruments for the collection of surveillance information and data, and implements new or revises existing surveillance systems. Conducts advanced descriptive and comprehensive analyses (e.g., simple regression, stratified analyses to control for confounding, adjusted odds ratios, and relative risks) of surveillance data for multiple audiences. Reports key findings and performs evaluations of the surveillance system. Support and strengthen public health data surveillance utilizing existing systems and developing new systems as necessary. Strengthen existing surveillance systems and policies to collect more comprehensive and accurate data. Plan and implement new data collection systems when necessary.
Epidemiologic Consultation on Scientific and Technical Issues. Provides scientific advice and technical assistance to CHCC health programs with respect to surveillance and other epidemiologic data and evaluation expertise. Assist with interfacing CHCC NEDSS Base System and other data collection systems for example CHCC EHR and LIS system. Contributes data analysis as needed for compliance with grants and other funding proposals. Effective advice and assistance require the application of program and epidemiologic expertise to complex public health issues, with an understanding of the appropriate cultural/social/political framework, as well as the ethical/legal issues related to epidemiologic data collection, dissemination, and use. Consults on technical problems where solutions may not conform to established protocols and may require the modification of approaches or applications in a specialty area. Provides epidemiologic advice and assistance in the resolution of technical issues that include significant barriers to program or project delivery. Participate actively in the CNMI and regional disease surveillance efforts. Work closely with CHCC local and regional partners to utilize data to strengthen public health efforts and build epidemiological capacity. Provide guidance and technical assistance to CHCC data technicians to build epidemiological, data analysis, and data interpretation capacity at CHCC. Develop new and expand existing community partnerships to strengthen epidemiological efforts. Collaborate with regional partners (i.e., PIHOA, SPC, CSTE, WHO) and other federal departments (e.g., HHS, CDC, HRSA, SAMHSA, ASPR, USDA) to strengthen and support disease surveillance and analysis activities in the region. Implement disease surveillance systems in CNMI that are consistent with regional systems. Uses clinical and laboratory data to support related epidemiological activities, including but not limited to the evaluation of improvement in laboratory testing capability for infectious diseases. Use findings, in collaboration with the CHCC Lab Director and CHCC Public Health Physician to inform the capabilities within the CHCC EHR to help ensure program sustainability.
Development and Dissemination of Data and Epidemiologic Findings. Review and/or validate all CHCC health data collection responses or reporting to National, Regional, International, and Local requesting bodies and organizations. Review, validate, and/or approve epidemiological profiles. Provide guidance, expert advice, and support in the assessment of current CHCC database systems and data collection methods and indicators. Guide planning and monitoring to promote more streamlined, integrated, efficient, and effective data collection, monitoring, and reporting processes, policies, and procedures.
Conducts literature reviews for program planning, for preparation of publications, and for evaluation. Designs and prepares reports from analyses of health systems’ data, literature reviews, and other information. Develop reports and disseminate data and epidemiological findings in an audience-appropriate manner utilizing effective communication strategies. Support programs with evaluation efforts and evaluate the data-driven recommendations to increase effectiveness of existing programs and identify needs. Makes oral presentations to diverse audiences.
Performance of other duties as assigned or as required.
Type of Supervision
Immediate Supervisor: Chief Operations Officer / Epidemiology & Laboratory Capacity Program
Does this position have an assigned responsibility to supervise the work of other employees? No
Qualifications
Educational Qualifications: Master’s degree or equivalent to PhD degree in Public Health (Epidemiology/Biostatistics), Informatics or related science (with significant course work in epidemiological methods, other epidemiological related research, and statistical methodology and analysis).
Experience: Master’s degree of five (5) years or equivalent to PhD degree of three (3) years in Public Health (Epidemiology/Biostatistics), Informatics or related science (with significant course work in epidemiological methods, other epidemiological related research, and statistical methodology and analysis) moderate to complex experience.
Other: Demonstration of an understanding of health care needs in the Pacific Islands. Experience working with internal and external public and private health partners involved in health system of programs, clinics and related setting with a moderately sized population (50-100k persons) and with at least a 50-bed hospital. Exceptional English communication skills, both orally and in writing, and the ability to communicate medical, statistical, and public health concepts to diverse audiences. Highly organized with an ability to effectively maneuver between multiple program planning demands. Self -motivated with excellent project management skills. Ability to work with individuals from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Ability to use statistical software packages such as but not limited to SAS(Statistical Analysis System), SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), EpiInfo, R, Excel, ArcGIS, STATA, Tableau, SQL (Structured Query Language), MAXQDA. Familiar with GIS mapping software, and Project Management tools such as MicroSoft Project. Demonstrable skills with structured and unstructured data analysis; data joining techniques; Experience with hospital data or large semi-structured datasets, data cleaning, data warehousing, database development, data visualization using tools such as Tableau.
For interested applications, kindly communicate directly to CNMI CHCC CEO Dr. Esther Muna at esther.muna@dph.gov.mp
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