Epidemiology Advisor (Maternity Cover) At Médecins Sans Frontières

Hours: Full time – 37.5 hours per week

Duration: 8 months fixed term contract, Starting January 2025

Location: London – hybrid working (office in Farringdon moving to Aldgate mid-January 2025)/Amsterdam

Salary: £58,282.07 per annum

Salary Grade: 17.1

Please click here to find complete job description and how to apply on our website

JOB PURPOSE

Our Epidemiology Advisors support health surveillance, and data management; provide rapid response to disease outbreaks and emergencies and facilitate field-based surveys and support operational research. This epidemiological capacity strengthens routine data collection and analysis and improves evidence-based decision-making, including research in our field projects.

OVERVIEW OF DEPARTMENT

The Manson Unit (MU) is a multi-disciplinary medical team within MSF UK. We aim to improve the quality of MSF’s medical programmes worldwide, so that the best possible care is delivered to patients.

The MU is a team of c40, comprised of medical doctors and specialists in infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases, health information systems, epidemiology, social science, geographical information systems, medical editing, and research communication. We provide direct support to our field programmes through providing specialist advice on medical issues, implementing new ways of working and piloting new approaches, supporting and overseeing research studies, and supporting outbreak response.

DIMENSIONS

No budget accountability.

People:

Lead in training and mentoring of the Epidemiology Activity Managers and Field Epidemiologists and provide leadership and advisory support to field teams to ensure quality. Provide trainings in specific universities, academies and in the field as well as supervise students with their master thesis in Epidemiology studies.

Other:

MSF’s wider agenda through developing and influencing key relationships within the MSF movement and externally on health programs.

Resolve complex epidemiological issues taking into account risks and benefits for patients, OCA, the broader MSF movement and external stakeholders, anticipating long term consequences of change and future trends.

Responsibility from development to implementation of research projects including new avenues of research with varied and innovative solutions in situations where judgment has to be continually exercised, sometimes within demanding timescales.

Contribute to the development of MSF Epidemiology activities ensuring these are translated into operational field team plans and objectives, this includes the contribution and formulation of annual plans for Epidemiology which sets and communicate objectives, monitoring the performance of others, and evaluate achievements against these plans.

CONTEXT

The MU is a multi-disciplinary medical team within MSF UK. We aim to improve the quality of MSF’s medical programmes worldwide, so that the best possible care is delivered to patients.

The MU works together with the Public Health Department (PHD) of Operational Centre Amsterdam (OCA) to support the overall purpose of MSF, providing medical and public health leadership for the organisation. The department is responsible for providing strategic direction and integrated advice on medical and public health issues to the field and headquarters.

The Epidemiology and Public Health (EPH) team is within the MU with epidemiologists, geographical information system and public health specialists. The team supports country project and headquarter teams to make evidence-based, data-driven decisions on medical and public health activity. This is achieved through:

• Effective and relevant data gathering in surveillance systems, health assessments and surveys, operational research, and outbreak investigation and response
• Supported analysis and interpretation of this data
• An operating model based on strong field epidemiology, and public health capacity with ready access to expert support
• Innovation in technology, data visualisation, survey methodology and operational research to enhance these activities
• Collaboration with other units to achieve change in our projects.
• Developing geographical layers for mapping project activities.

CHALLENGE & CREATIVITY / DECISION-MAKING

The job holder is the ultimate decision maker whether to proceed with surveys and surveillance projects implemented in the field. Health surveys are large activities that require careful planning, technical input and resources: both monetary and human resources since they can mobilise several teams for several weeks.

The job holder is also actively involved in the management of outbreak response and operational research. And advise in the development of the annual planning of MSF OCA missions.

Other challenges include remaining available for field deployments.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

• Master’s in Epidemiology or Public health (with strong epidemiology modules).
• Epidemiology experience gained in humanitarian settings.
• Skills and proven experience in medical data management and analysis.
• Experience and skill in designing, implementing and analysing health facility and community-based surveillance systems.
• Demonstrable ability and experience in population-based surveys (mortality surveys, vaccination coverage surveys, nutritional surveys and others), and/or cross-sectional studies and the process of designing and implementing epidemiological studies.
• Skills and proven experience in supporting the use of data in decision-making and developing data literacy in others.
• Computer literate with demonstrable ability and experience using epidemiological and health information system software such as R, STATA and Excel, Epi-info, Epi-data, District Health Information System 2(DHIS2).
• Previous proven experience in report-writing and publication of epidemiological research studies and surveys.
• Thorough understanding around ethical issues in research, particularly in humanitarian settings.
• Experience in training and supervision of other epidemiologists
• International experience with MSF or equivalent.
• Fluent in written and spoken English and French desirable.
• Experience with mapping/GIS techniques, dashboard development, and use of mobile data collection.
• Experience in the practical use of personal IT equipment and Microsoft Office 365 suite. The ability to effectively collaborate and communicate within a hybrid working environment utilising Teams, SharePoint, One Drive and Viva Engage.