Job Opportunities at Christopher-kings and Associates

OVERALL ROLE

The Technical Officer, Health Security and Event-based Surveillance will contribute to the development of country level strategies aimed at strengthening International Health Regulations (IHR) related activities within the Prevent Epidemics Team at Resolve to Save Lives and the Rapid Mortality Surveillance (RMS) team at Vital Strategies through working with national and subnational stakeholders. Additionally, the incumbent will provide technical support for the implementation of the event-based surveillance (EBS) system at the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and support capacity building of EBS at the sub-national levels in selected states. This position will be based in Abuja with some limited travel to the field. The Technical Officer will report to the Country Representative in the Nigeria Office. They will receive technical supervision from the Senior Technical Advisor (Prevent Epidemics) at the RTSL HQ.

SPECIFIC DUTIES
International Health Regulations (IHR)

• Support the review and implementation of health security assessment tool deployed to assess health security capacities at the sub-national level
• Facilitate the conduct of sub-national level assessment using the adapted health security assessment tool and identify priority areas for improvement across states
• Provide technical assistance to the responsible persons within the IHR National Focal Point to ensure national compliance with the provisions of the International Health Regulations (2005)
• Build capacity of technical teams at the national and state levels to ensure consistent implementation of the health security assessments at sub-national level
• Liaise with relevant government officials and partners on a continuous basis to ensure coordination, identification, and development of strategies to resolve capacity gaps for the successful planning, implementation and strengthening of health security capacities in Nigeria especially at the sub-national level
• Provide technical leadership to support the use of the health assessment tool and other IHR Monitoring and Evaluation Frameworks at sub-national level
• Support the execution of strategies and initiatives to fully implement the National Action Plan on Health Security (NAPHS) and the recommendations from the mid-term Joint External Evaluation (JEE) conducted in 2019

Event-based Surveillance (EBS)

• Support the coordination and implementation of NCDC’s event-based surveillance activities, including media scanning, event verification, risk assessment, report writing, and report dissemination.
• Strengthen the capacities of event based surveillance teams at the state and LGA Level in the RTSL supported states for the effective and sustained surveillance of epidemic prone diseases through capacity building on field investigation, detection, data management, and rapid response to epidemics and health outbreaks in line with the integrated disease surveillance and response system (IDSR)
• Facilitate the development of guidelines, tools, and indicators for effective disease surveillance at the national, subnational and community levels based on established national guidelines
• Enable the implementation of the International Health Regulations (IHR) including participation in the process of verification and risk assessment on reported public health events
• Promote the effective coordination for rapid assessment, surveillance, and response activities for epidemic-prone diseases at national and sub-national levels and ensure timeliness of response to outbreaks
• Provide technical guidance for the management of a unified information system (e.g. SitAware) to ensure availability of core EBS data and other information on surveillance-related technical areas such as: case incidence; case management surveillance data; laboratory surveillance data; contact tracing, etc.

 Mortality Surveillance (Routine and Rapid MS)

• Coordinate the development of a mortality surveillance reporting mechanism linked to the Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) reporting system
• Facilitate the identification and active dissemination of best-practice guidance for the implementation of Mortality Surveillance in the country and maintain situational awareness of evolving issues
• Coordinate communication with VS/RTSL internal teams and external stakeholders with interest in mortality surveillance, civil registrations and vital statistics in Nigeria
• Map, identify and engage stakeholders and partners with linkages to mortality surveillance, civil registration & vital statistics reporting in the country as well as partners from external agencies and represent Vital Strategies at RMS technical events and meetings 

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

• MBBS / MD with at least four years’ experience working on surveillance and health security or public health program implementation at the national level or other health related qualification with a Master’s in Public Health and at least six years’ experience implementing public health programs
• Further training in epidemiology, postgraduate training in community medicine or public health will be an advantage
• Experience working on communicable diseases and responding to outbreaks locally and internationally.
• Demonstrated knowledge of technical and programmatic aspects of the international health regulations, indicator or event-based surveillance for infectious diseases and epidemic prone diseases
• Proven ability to identify and quickly address challenges or obstacles
• Training and/or technical support provision experience
• Demonstrated experience in tools and/or guidance development
• Strong data analytical skills
• Demonstrated experience managing partnerships
• Exceptional inter-personal skills and ability to communicate and work effectively with policy makers, government officials, stakeholders, and partners at the national and state levels
• Solid report writing skills
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Willingness and ability to travel to program sites.

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OVERALL ROLE

The Technical Officer, Strategic Data, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning will support the reporting function and strategic knowledge management. They will support data analysis, provide strategic coordination of the data products for the Prevent Epidemics and Cardiovascular Disease programs. The Technical Officer, Strategic Data, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning will report to the Country Representative. They will receive technical supervision from the Director of Global Hypertension, Senior Technical Advisor, Prevent Epidemics and Director, Epidemic Intelligence Unit at the RTSL HQ.

SPECIFIC DUTIES

Cardiovascular Health

• Prepare outcome metrics and regular data dashboards to track progress toward goals of the Cardiovascular Health program in Nigeria. Use multiple sources of data, including both national, state and facility level data sources and external data sources, to identify and predict barriers to success and areas where improvement is needed.
• Use data to understand how successful the NHCI is by providing technical assistance to the states for monitoring client enrolling, retention and data quality; support NHCI and the Non-Communicable Disease programs at the national and state levels in using data to identify strategies to improve program quality.
• Create actionable intelligence to guide Cardiovascular Health programs efforts.
• Support development of analytic products, such as reports or a data dashboard, to communicate NCHI efforts and successes.
• Identify and coordinate opportunities to improve data dissemination at the national and state levels and to other stakeholders, including to provide greater data insights for policy makers at the state and national levels.
• Support the implementation of relevant studies and surveys being conducted as part of the cardiovascular health program in Nigeria.

Prevent Epidemics

• Ensure analytical rigor of data analyses and interpretation and work closely with the National Public Health Institute (NCDC) and partners to align analytic methods with best practices.
• Work with epidemiologists and other analytical staff to conduct basic data analyses with close guidance from national and state surveillance teams
• Support the development of programmatic and technical progress reports for all RTSL activities
• Support implementation of activities aimed at improving data for action, addressing bottlenecks, and developing monitoring and evaluation indicators for national and subnational health security
• Capacity building for strategic data management, monitoring and evaluation, data visualization and big data management through mentoring, workshops, and training for project officers at the national and state level
• Undertake any other duties as may be assigned RTSL Directors

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE REQUIRED

• Master’s degree in public health, epidemiology, public policy, or other health-related field is required.  Bachelor’s degree with at least ten years’ relevant experience will be considered.
• At least 5 years’ progressive experience in data management, data sciences, monitoring, evaluation, and learning for large scale projects, additional experience is preferred and will be considered as a strength in the evaluation of a candidate.
• Experience with applied data analysis highly desired. This could entail experience conducting data analysis or synthesizing existing research to inform operational or strategic decision-making.

• Moderate technical skills preferred, including proficiency in Excel and data visualization platforms like Power BI. Experience with statistical software, (R suite, SPSS, SAS, Advanced Microsoft Excel, and Access) is desired. Advanced certification and experience in big data management would be an advantage

• Candidate should have high degree of comfort interpreting data analysis and research findings, integrating and synthesizing information from across data sources, and understanding the strengths, shortcomings, and applications of various data sources.
• Familiarity with performance management desirable, including developing outcome metrics, tracking, and interpreting trends, and presenting ongoing performance metrics in digestible and compelling manner. Ability to present complex information in an easy-to-understand manner is key.
• Exceptional ability to work across teams. Staff member will need to build close relationship and meaningful day-to-day integration with teams from the national and state level and across the stakeholders/partners of the PE/CVH programs
• Demonstrated ability to work with individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, and with varying levels of comfort with data.
• Excellent oral and written communication skills

• Experience of implementing monitoring and evaluation of health programs at a national level
• Demonstrated evidence of developing high level technical reports and peer reviewed publication would be an advantage.