Founded in 2002 by President William J. Clinton, the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to strengthening integrated health systems around the world and expanding access to care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, malaria and other illnesses. Based on the premise that business oriented strategy can facilitate solutions to global health challenges, CHAI acts as a catalyst to mobilize new resources and optimize the impact of these resources to save lives, via improved organization of commodity markets and more effective local management. By working in association with governments and other NGO partners, CHAI is focused on large scale impact and, to date, CHAI has secured lower pricing agreements for treatment options in more than 70 countries. In addition, CHAI’s teams are working side-by-side with over 30 governments to tackle many of the largest barriers to effective treatment and care.
CHAI’s global malaria program provides direct technical and operational support to countries around the globe to strengthen their malaria programs and reduce the burden of this preventable, treatable disease. We support governments to scale up effective interventions for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance, with the goals of sustainably reducing the number of malaria-related illnesses and deaths worldwide in the short-term and accelerating progress towards malaria elimination in the long term.
Overview of Role:
CHAI is broadly supporting malaria programs in South Africa, Swaziland, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana to generate evidence for strategy and operational planning, secure financing and efficient use of resources and support the implementation of malaria elimination activities. In particular, the regional malaria team is working to strengthen malaria surveillance systems, devise and implement targeted and evidence-based elimination plans, scale-up interventions in high-risk and hard-to-reach populations, and to coordinate activities regionally. CHAI is seeking a highly motivated individual for the role of Senior Research Associate, with strong public health research experience, outstanding analytical skills and project management experience to support the technical activities related to malaria elimination in Southern Africa. The aim of this support is to ensure that national malaria programs and ministries of health in the region are using robust evidence to inform their strategic and operational decision making to accelerate efforts towards malaria elimination. The Senior Research Associate will work as a member of the CHAI global malaria analytics and surveillance team, closely interacting with a number of individuals on the global team and at the country level, and therefore will require strong communication and organizational skills. Further, it is expected that the Senior Research Associate will need to collaborate with other academics and public health agencies to ensure CHAI’s research is complementary and not duplicative.
The Senior Research Associate will report to the Senior Technical Advisor. S/he will work in close collaboration with Southern Africa Regional Managers and 6 country support teams who will be providing direct management support to the national malaria programs in Southern Africa.
Base location is in Swaziland or in other countries in Southern Africa (Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, South Africa), depending on country requirements and approvals.
Job Requirements
- Providing analytical support to CHAI regional and country support staff involved in malaria elimination activities in Southern Africa;
- Advising on the malaria elimination strategy based on the generated technical evidence regarding malaria risk, and the appropriate interventions to reach elimination and provide technical recommendations to the national malaria programs
- Cleaning and collating data and analyzing quality and suitability for analyses;
- Conducting statistical and epidemiological analyses to understand malaria risk;
- Analyzing geographic data with GIS software including mapping malaria incidence;
- Supervise the gathering of all relevant data types by liaising with country associates, and partners in the region;
- Designing and implementing operational research projects (background research, survey design and protocol development, IRB submission, protocol implementation, data collection SOPs, data analysis plans etc.);
- Designing and implementing new surveillance platforms for improved data collection, data management, analysis and data visualization;
- Managing a small team to develop maps, and conduct epidemiological data analysis, and any other key analytical deliverables
- Managing analytical projects related to malaria epidemiology, intervention and surveillance, as required
- Working with academic institutions and other external organization to identify research and technological tools with potential application to government programs;
- Synthesizing results and communicating them internally (CHAI) and externally to the NMCPs and at international venues;
- Assisting government partners to develop evidence-based policies and plans;
- Disseminating findings through high-quality presentations, reports, and publications and communicating them internally and externally at international venues; and
- Any other tasks identified.
- PhD or Master’s degree strongly preferred in Public Health, Epidemiology, or related field and 3+ years of related and relevant experience; or Bachelor’s minimum with exceptional experience
- Knowledge of malaria and/or other major global infectious disease problems, especially in the context of diseases surveillance, prevention and control;
- Experience with risk mapping and other spatial-temporal statistical and mathematical modeling methodologies, using data from disease surveillance, surveys, remote sensing and other relevant sources;
- Familiarity with methodologies to quantify human and malaria parasite movement, using DHS surveys, mobile provider call detail records, migration reports amongst others;
- Experience with conducting technical evaluations of surveillance systems to define gaps and identify solutions; critically assessing data collection, data storage and data use aspects and identifying solutions for improved processes at all stages;
- Proven experience of formulating, implementing and analyzing epidemiological surveys;
- Proven experience of managing teams and staff members for activities related to disease analytics and surveillance;
- High levels of proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and internet applications;
- Strong statistical and geospatial analysis programming experience (R, SAS, STATA, ArcGIS and/or other relevant software);
- Ability to work independently and effectively in high-pressure, fast-paced environment
- Ability to handle multiple tasks and projects simultaneously;
- Superb problem-solving skills and analytical capabilities;
- Enthusiasm for applying research methods to solve global health problems;
- Exceptional written and oral communication skills; and
- Ability to travel regionally (30 – 50% of the time)
Advantages:
- Experience working in resource limited settings;
- Experience working and communicating with government officials and multilateral organizations;
- Experience working remotely with a decentralized team; and
- Professional working proficiency in Portuguese
More Information
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