Country

India

Type

Independent Contractor

Program (Division)

Country Programs – India

Telecommute

Yes

The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to our mission of saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries. We work at the invitation of governments to support them and the private sector to create and sustain high-quality health systems. 

CHAI was founded in 2002 in response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic with the goal of dramatically reducing the price of life-saving drugs and increasing access to these medicines in the countries with the highest burden of the disease. Over the following two decades, CHAI has expanded its focus. Today, along with HIV, we work in conjunction with our partners to prevent and treat infectious diseases such as COVID-19, malaria, tuberculosis, and hepatitis. Our work has also expanded into cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and other non-communicable diseases, and we work to accelerate the rollout of lifesaving vaccines, reduce maternal and child mortality, combat chronic malnutrition, and increase access to assistive technology. We are investing in horizontal approaches to strengthen health systems through programs in human resources for health, digital health, and health financing. With each new and innovative program, our strategy is grounded in maximizing sustainable impact at scale, ensuring that governments lead the solutions, that programs are designed to scale nationally, and learnings are shared globally.  

At CHAI, our people are our greatest asset, and none of this work would be possible without their talent, time, dedication and passion for our mission and values. We are a highly diverse team of enthusiastic individuals across 40 countries with a broad range of skillsets and life experiences. CHAI is deeply grounded in the countries we work in, with majority of our staff based in program countries. 

In India, CHAI works in partnership with its India registered affiliate William J Clinton Foundation (WJCF) under the guidance of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) at the Central and States’ levels on an array of high priority initiatives aimed at improving health outcomes. Currently, WJCF supports government partners across projects to expand access to quality care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, tuberculosis, COVID-19, common cancers, sexual and reproductive health, immunization, and essential medicines.

Learn more about our exciting work: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

Program Overview

India’s Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) is one of the largest public immunization programmes in the world. It caters to 27 million infants and 30 million pregnant women. The programme provides access to vaccines against 11 Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPDs) at the national level and against one VPD at the sub-national level.

Under the strong leadership of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) and state governments, the immunization ecosystem has demonstrated a proactive commitment to achieving universal immunization coverage in the country in recent years. This includes health system strengthening efforts towards the introduction of new vaccines, rolling out of data systems, digitization of vaccine cold chain and inventory management, and health worker capacity building. MoHFW plans to scale up a digitized beneficiary management system (UWIN) for Routine Immunization, introduce new vaccines in the UIP, and reduce Zero-dose children.

Based on the NFHS-5 data, the number of Zero-Dose children (those who missed pentavalent 1 vaccine after birth) in India stands at around 1.6 million. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan contribute the largest share of zero-dose children in the country. Building a top Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030), India aims to reduce the number of Zero-Dose children by 30% by 2026.

Project Background

WJCF’s immunization program supports the MoHFW’s UIP at the national level and in the focus states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh. The programme also supports national and state governments on broader operational aspects such as planning, capacity building and systems improvements for immunization service delivery. 

In Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, the programme provides catalytic support for achieving and sustaining 90% FIC. The programme focuses on setting up effective program management & review mechanisms, identifying pressing challenges as well as best practices in RI, enhancing impact of well performing interventions, developing & deploying effective solutions to pressing challenges and undertaking multi-year planning for long term immunization systems strengthening. WJCF plans to increase its focus on two aspects to drive immunization coverage: one, strengthening of review quality and decision-making through improved data analytics and capacity building, two, zero dose learning through hypothesis testing and iterative solutioning.

In Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, the programme also provides support to strengthen urban immunization systems and improve urban coverage in select cities in collaboration with the MoHFW and the state governments. Guided by the MoHFW’s City Embrace Model, the programme focuses on solving for systemic & hyperlocal challenges by conceptualizing & implementing contextual solutions.

Position Summary

We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Behavioural Science Consultant to join our team. The Behavioural Science Consultant will play a key role in understanding, analysing, and influencing the behaviour of caregivers, health workers, and government program managers to drive positive immunization outcomes. They will apply their expertise to design and implement research studies, analyse data, and provide insights to design interventions, products, or solutions for immunization coverage improvement. They will also support in measuring the impact of the interventions and design SoPs for large-scale implementation. This role also involves collaborating with multidisciplinary teams, gender experts, and other stakeholders.

We are looking for a candidate passionate about public health, proficient in human behaviour analysis, with at least seven years’ experience in designing behavioural research methods and solutions for immunization or public health. The ideal candidate should demonstrate independence, flexibility, resourcefulness, responsibility, tenacity, energy, and a strong work ethic.

This consultant will be engaged for a duration of 180 days across 18-24 months.

Behavioural Research and Insights

• Investigate client[1] behavioural toward immunization, and interventions through quantitative and qualitative research methods. Uncover behavioural drivers through client interactions and surveys.
• Undertake persona analysis to identify behavioural patterns or characteristics of caregivers, families, and communities who miss vaccination through primary and secondary data analysis.
• Conduct desk research on existing research, grey literature, and experience to draw primary hypotheses on zero dose and missed beneficiaries.
• Support the program team in designing methods for behavioural research and conducting studies. They will be responsible for identifying sample size, designing questionnaire, data collection techniques, training of the investigators, and all the other aspects of research.
• Establishing feedback loops to ensure that information generated from the users is continuously incorporated into the intervention design.

Innovation and Product Design

• Design interventions, solutions, or products targeted toward the behavior of the clients for improving immunization outcomes including complete and timely vaccination.
• The consultant will facilitate continuous iteration of the interventions, solutions, or products based on the feedback loops to ensure scalability and sustainability of the same.

Capacity Building

• Undertake capacity building of the program team in behavioural science methods through trainings and workshops.
• Collaborate with a diverse team and stakeholders on the research methods and intervention design.

Documentation and Dissemination

• Develop, implement, and monitor plans for behavioural sciences-based interventions and measure outcomes.
• Support documentation of behavioural science-informed approaches, interventions, and their impact for project reports, publications, etc and help in the dissemination of the same to various stakeholders.

Others

• Design interventions to ensure sustained enhancement of Program Managers’ capacities in data utilization coming from various RI and non-RI datasets by applying Adult Learning Principles to navigate data and analysis dashboards.
• Undertake short-term travel to the field in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh to perform the above-mentioned responsibilities.
• Perform other duties assigned by the program leadership.

• Master’s degree in behavioural sciences, or related fields like psychology, sociology, anthropology, public health, or another related field.
• A minimum of five (5) years of proven experience in applied research, with a focus on user experience and public health.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to convey complex findings to diverse stakeholders in the form of analysis and presentations.
• Ability to handle ambiguity, self-motivate, multi-task, and operate in an ever-changing and fast-paced setup.
• Entrepreneurial mindset, including the ability to self-motivate while working in a high-pressure, limited structure, and multicultural environment.
• Capability to drive an independent workstream in the context of a broader team project, and an ability to break down and solve problems.
• High level of proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
• Willingness to travel if required even to remote places in India.
• The consultant is expected to work remotely with need-based travel to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Delhi.

Preferred

• Experience of working on behaviour sciences-based approaches and interventions for immunization or public health programs in low and middle-income countries.
• Strong Analytical (qualitative and quantitative) skills