Country

Panama

City

Panama City

Type

Full Time

Program (Division)

Country Programs – Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)

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

CHAI is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and is committed to providing an environment of fairness, and mutual respect where all applicants have access to equal employment opportunities. CHAI values diversity and inclusion, and recognizes that our mission is best advanced by the leadership and contributions of people with diverse experience, backgrounds, and culture.

Latin America & the Caribbean Overview

In 2014, CHAI began working in Latin America & the Caribbean (LAC) to support the Ministries of Health in their goal to eliminate malaria. Since then, CHAI has continuously grown in the region and has worked on multiple projects including digital health, dengue, vaccines, COVID-19, and medical oxygen; providing support to various countries: Dominican Republic, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Ecuador, among others.

CHAI’s LAC Malaria & Neglected Tropical Diseases program provides direct technical and operational support to countries in the region to strengthen their vector borne diseases programs and reduce the burden of malaria, dengue, and other neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

In Panama, CHAI’s LAC Malaria & Neglected Tropical Diseases program is helping the government to scale up effective interventions for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and surveillance, to achieve malaria elimination and to reduce the incidence and mortality of dengue.

Overview of Role

CHAI is seeking a highly motivated individual with experience in disease surveillance systems, data analysis and public health research to coordinate CHAI’s epidemiological surveillance and analytics work in Panama. This individual will collaborate with the Ministry of Health and partners to improve case-based malaria surveillance, data analysis, mapping/GIS activities, and operational research studies to support malaria elimination in the country. The aim of this support is to ensure that the national malaria program is using robust evidence to inform their strategic and operational decision making. Strong communication and organizational skills are needed as s(he) will work closely with CHAI’s Global and Regional Malaria Teams and will help to translate epidemiological evidence to malaria programs and other partners in country. Further, it is expected that the Research Associate will have strong relationship management skills as they will be asked to lead projects with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and third-party organizations to achieve results.

This position will report directly to CHAI’s Program Manager in Panama while receiving technical guidance and backstopping from regional epidemiologists and Health Information specialists.

The candidate must be able to multi-task, work independently, and build strong relationships to consolidate CHAI’s partnerships and drive progress. Furthermore, the candidate must have deep personal commitment to producing results and a willingness to travel to relatively remote regions with limited infrastructure and medical care. Additionally, the candidate will be highly motivated with robust organizational, problem-solving, and communication skills. CHAI places great value on relevant personal qualities including resourcefulness, tenacity, independence, patience, and humility.

• Provide direct support to surveillance and analytics workstreams including conducting high-quality epidemiological analyses to evaluate effectiveness of current interventions, understand disease patterns, and inform strategic planning related to malaria in Panama
• Design, implement, analyze, and disseminate operational research projects evaluating program or intervention effectiveness
• Serve as a trusted adviser to key stakeholders across government and non-governmental organizations by proactively developing and maintaining strong working relationships
• Perform scientific literature review on relevant topics as needed (e.g., surveillance methods, molecular epidemiology, drivers of malaria transmission, intervention effectiveness)
• Monitor, evaluate, and improve the performance of malaria surveillance processes and platforms (including the development of data collection tools and data visualization tools) and contribute to the formulation of surveillance guidelines and SOPs
• Organize, clean, and integrate datasets from different sources and conduct statistical and/or spatial analyses of malaria metrics (epidemiology, entomology, interventions) to understand disease pattern and impact of interventions in collaboration with academic partners when relevant
• Promote the routine use and analyses of epidemiological, entomological, and programmatic data including through the institutionalization of data reviews at all levels to inform country strategy planning and routine program implementation 
• Formulate training materials and deliver national and sub-national level technical training supervision, training and ad-hoc programmatic support to the program and staff members involved in epidemiological and surveillance strengthening activities
• Translate analytic results to government and non-government partners, synthesize and disseminate findings through high-quality presentations, reports, and scientific publications 
• Represent CHAI at external technical meetings with local academic and technical partners
• Any other tasks as required

• Master’s degree in Public Health, Epidemiology or related field
• 3+ years of related working experience
• Knowledge of malaria and/or other major global infectious diseases and disease surveillance and information systems
• Proven experience with monitoring, evaluating and strengthening surveillance systems
• Experience working with electronic surveillance platforms, data collection tools (e.g., ODK) and/or data visualization applications (e.g., Tableau)
• Experience in epidemiological and spatial analysis of disease data
• Working knowledge of at least one statistical analysis program (e.g., R, Stata, Python, SAS,)
• High levels of proficiency in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and internet applications
• Ability to work independently in unstructured settings and to adapt to new environments and challenges
• Ability to manage complex projects and stakeholder relationships
• Experience applying research methods to address global health problems
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills
• Fluency in Spanish (written and oral), and English
• Willingness to travel in-country (up to 30% of the time) and internationally (~5%)

Advantages

• Experience working and communicating with government officials and multilateral organizations
• Experience living or working in resource-limited settings
• Experience working remotely with a decentralized team
• Experience using mapping and/or geospatial analysis software (e.g., ArcGIS)

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