Country: United States of America
Closing date: 22 Dec 2017
Job Title: Health Preparedness and Response Advisor
Sector: Health
Employment Category: Fixed Term
Location: USA-New York, NY - HQ
Job Description
Background/IRC Summary:
The IRC responds to the world's worst humanitarian crises and helps people to survive and rebuild their lives. Health programs represent the largest single sector within which IRC currently operates, constituting approximately 45% of the international budget and with activities in 22 countries. Field-based health staff are supported by a headquarters Health Unit comprised of health professionals with many years of experience in humanitarian work. The IRC's Emergency Unit leads and oversees IRC's global emergency preparedness and response activities. Under the CDC-IRC global project on emergency preparedness and response to health crises, the Advisor is responsible for working with the IRC's Health Unit and its Emergency Health Team to support global and country-level preparedness and response to health emergencies through remote and field support to public health and epidemiology activities.
Job Overview/Summary:
The Advisor will deliver support to countries through capacity building activities including the development and facilitation of two regional trainings on the technical design of public health surveillance and response programs in emergencies, remote technical assistance for acute crises, and direct field support to surveillance and public health response during acute crises. Reports to the Senior Epidemiologist (when not deployed) and Emergency Health Coordinator (when deployed).
Major Responsibilities:
§ Support the development and facilitation of two dynamic and hands-on, regional-level trainings on health preparedness and response for countries affected by conflict, natural disasters and/or displacement. The training will focus on an all hazards approach to health crises which are defined as disease outbreaks and emergencies with health and humanitarian consequences.
§ Provide field support to the Emergency Health Coordinator to support field epidemiology, implementing and evaluating surveillance, rapid health assessments and field surveys, monitoring and evaluation activities, and any other health sector-specific activities as needed.
§ Provide remote technical assistance to countries concerning their health sector-specific preparedness and response activities and epidemiological analysis of surveillance data.
§ Support the Health Unit to develop and publish organizational guidelines for the operationalization of public health activities, surveillance and response within IRC programs.
Key Working Relationships:
Position Reports to: Reports to the Senior Epidemiologist (when not deployed) and Emergency Health Coordinator (when deployed).
Position directly supervises: N/A
Indirect Reporting: Other Internal and/or external contacts: describe the nature of departments or groups the position influences or requires support from to accomplish objectives.
Internal:
External:
Job Requirements:
§ 6-8 years work experience
§ Public health professional with a degree in public health/epidemiology. Preference will be given to those with certification from a 2-year field epidemiology training program such as the Epidemic Intelligence Service or international equivalent (EPIET, FETP, etc)
§ At least two years of relevant experience in a low resource or crisis setting with an NGO
§ Strong grasp of field epidemiology with demonstrated experience in any of: public health response, rapid health assessments, field surveys, surveillance/early warning systems
§ Demonstrated skills in training other public health professionals
§ Experience with statistical analysis for field epidemiology; familiar with STATA, EpiInfo or R
§ Experience in collaborating with headquarters staff, donors, government officials, and other NGOs; the ability to work with a broad spectrum of people and represent the IRC.
§ Ability to travel 40% of the time
§ Fluency in English (required); French or Arabic (desirable)
Working Environment: Standard office work environment. 40% travel.
How to apply:
Please follow this link to apply: http://www.aplitrak.com/?adid=YXN0cmlkLm1hdGhldy43MzM4Ni4zODMwQGlyY2NkLmFwbGl0cmFrLmNvbQ