Epidemiologist (7 Positions)

Description

Job Summary

To support the Ministry of Health and Baylor Foundation Uganda in strengthening integrated health care package (surveillance at community and facility levels, Acute febrile illness, Mortality surveillance and IPC), milestone monitoring and support coordination role at REOC and district. The officer will contribute to the timely detection, notification, verification, and analysis of public health events to inform public health actions.

Overall Responsibilities

•    1. Data Management and Analysis Through the Regional Emergency Operations Centre (REOC)
• Collect, validate, and clean surveillance data from community and health facility sources.
• Submit timely reports and dashboards to the REOC and national task forces.
• Participate in REOC coordination meetings and contribute to response strategies
• Ensure integration of mortality data into national surveillance systems (DHIS2, EWARN, etc.).
• Support data triangulation with case surveillance and burial team reports.
• Build capacity of REOC on timely development and dissemination of information products.
• Participate in record/data reviews to identify priority disease pathogens and take necessary action

1. Regional and District Coordination & Capacity Strengthening

• Work with REOC to support regional coordination mechanism
• Conduct Bi-weekly epidemic intelligence meetings
• Liaise with district surveillance officers, laboratory teams, burial teams, IPC focal persons and other stakeholders for coordinated response.
• Contribute to documentation of lessons learned and best practices for future outbreak responses.
• Participate in surveillance review meetings and capacity-building activities.
• Work with REOC to coordinate deployment of regional rapidly deployable teams during response activities.
• Work with REOC to coordinate signal verification in the region, ensuring all signals are verified within 24 hours of triage.
• Work with REOC to ensure early action review are completed for all confirmed public health events and 7-1-7 tracker updated.
• Work with REOC to ensure formal response actions for all outbreaks are completed within 7 days.
• Work with REOCs and national OH platform to establish and functionalize One-Health Teams (OHT) at the districts.
• Coordinate and supervise implementation of Epidemic ready primary health care model in the region

1. Community Disease Surveillance including mortality surveillance.

• Support training and supervision of community health workers (CHWs) on death notification and verbal autopsy processes.
• Coordinate community-based reporting of deaths and suspected SVD-related fatalities.
• Facilitate community engagement and awareness activities to improve death reporting.
• Ensure timely investigation and documentation of all reported community deaths.
• Work with local leaders and VHTs to verify and trace reported community deaths.

1. Health Facility Surveillance Using Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)

• Provide technical guidance to health facility staff on accurate medical certification of cause of death (MCCoD).
• Support implementation of CQI approaches to enhance surveillance data accuracy, completeness, and timeliness.
• Facilitate regular death review meetings in health facilities.
• Mentor health facility staff on use of ICD-10 codes for death reporting.
• Monitor and report on gaps in facility mortality surveillance and propose actionable improvements.

1. Acute febrile illness:

• Work with REOC to monitor AFI performance in the region
• Conduct supportive supervision/targeted mentorships to poorly performing sites.
• Support in AFI data analysis and sharing

Required Qualification.

• • Bachelor’s degree in medicine, Public Health, or related field;• Masters in Epidemiology, Public Health or related field
• • Additional training in field Epidemiology.

Experience and Competencies:

• 5 Year(s) Relevant Experience

Competencies:

Epidemiological and Technical Skills

• Disease surveillance and surveillance system design
• Outbreak investigation and response
• Case definition development and case finding
• Contact tracing and monitoring
• Epidemic curve and transmission analysis
• Risk assessment and risk characterization
• Disease forecasting and trend analysis
• Knowledge of communicable diseases and emerging infectious diseases

2. Data Management and Analysis

• Data collection, cleaning, validation, and management
• Statistical analysis and interpretation
• Analysis of surveillance and outbreak data
• Database management
• Data visualization and dashboard development
• Use of statistical software such as R, Stata, SPSS, or Epi Info
• Familiarity with DHIS2 and other health information systems
• Geographic and spatial analysis using GIS/QGIS 
• Data quality assessment and improvement

3. Outbreak Preparedness and Response

• Rapid outbreak assessment and investigation
• Development and implementation of preparedness and response plans
• Incident management and emergency operations
• Rapid risk assessment
• Development of situation reports and epidemiological bulletins
• Monitoring outbreak response indicators
• Supporting simulation exercises and after-action reviews
• Application of the 7-1-7 framework for outbreak detection, notification, and response

4. Surveillance Skills

• Design and strengthening of indicator-based surveillance
• Event-based and community-based surveillance
• Integrated disease surveillance
• Syndromic surveillance
• One Health surveillance
• Cross-border and regional surveillance
• Early warning and alert systems
• Data triangulation from human, animal, and environmental sources

5. Communication and Coordination

• Technical report writing
• Preparation of epidemiological bulletins and situation reports
• Data presentation and visualization
• Communication of complex epidemiological findings to non-technical audiences
• Facilitation of technical meetings
• Coordination with laboratories, clinicians, surveillance officers, and other sectors
• Effective communication during public health emergencies

6. Global Health Security Competencies

• International Health Regulations (IHR 2005)
• One Health approaches
• Public health emergency preparedness
• Risk communication
• Health security and health system resilience
• Border health and points-of-entry surveillance