Research Program Officer

General Summary/Purpose

The Bill & Melinda Gates Institute within the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) has launched a second phase of an innovative survey research program in partnership with Jhpiego, entitled Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA), formerly PMA2020. The project is designed to deliver high-quality, rapid-turnaround data into the hands of public health policymakers, program managers, and other stakeholders at frequent intervals to promote data-driven decision-making to improve the health and welfare of populations. To achieve this goal, PMA recruits women from a set of nationally or sub-nationally representative sentinel communities and trains them to collect data on a routine basis using smartphone technology. Data are collected at both household and facility levels.

PMA data collection platforms have been established in 11 countries in Africa and Asia, working with local university and research partners. In the next phase, PMA continues this work in eight geographies, with plans for targeted expansion in donor priority geographies. The core survey covers family planning (including contraceptive dynamics) and reproductive health indicators, while maintaining flexibility to add new modules in related health areas according to local data needs. It will also introduce a panel design that will follow a cohort of reproductive age women on an annual basis and a representative set of service delivery points over a 3-year period. The panel will be combined with periodic cross-sections drawn from the same sampled, sentinel communities. Jhpiego joins the PMA Global team to oversee sub-award management and program management with country partners, and promote platform sustainability, communications and data utilization efforts.

The PMA Global team, based in Baltimore, is composed of faculty, staff, and masters and doctoral students. This team works closely with universities and research institutes across the constituent geographies to implement the surveys and to build capacity of those organizations to undertake this work independently.

Specific Duties & Responsibilities

PMA is seeking a full-time Francophone Research Program Officer to support data management and analysis activities across all project countries and in Baltimore, with a particular focus on Francophone countries. PMA Francophone countries currently include Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger and DRC with expansion planned into Togo, Benin, and Guinea. Major responsibilities include providing remote/in-person technical assistance during field staff trainings, field pre-testing, and data collection, including computer programming and data management activities, and serving as Data Management Advisor within the Francophone Hub Leadership Team. As the PMA platform has been operating for the past five years, the Francophone Research Program Officer will also take a lead role in building local capacity within the Francophone teams to become more self-sufficient in data management, and analysis through leading regular training.

Specific tasks that the Research Program Officer will be responsible for include:

• Assist with grant-reporting to project funders, especially for the PO’s designated countries
• Document country-level changes to questionnaires or protocols at the PMA Global-level
• Coordinate with relevant module and activity-specific leads within the PMA survey platform that may be organizing separate data collection activities
• Facilitate the JHSPH IRB submission and amendment processes as needed
• Develop and update data cleaning Stata ‘do’ files
• During active fieldwork, monitoring quality and rapidity of data collection
• Maintain and improve data user tools released with public datasets
• Assist with analysis for reports, data briefs, and auxiliary publications
• Coordinate and assist with training of in-country partner technical staff
• External stakeholder engagement

Minimum Qualifications (Required)

• Bachelor’s degree in public health, statistics, biostatistics, math, or other related discipline.
• Minimum of five (5) years of data management experience, requiring advanced skills with Stata, SPSS, SAS, or R.

Preferred Qualifications

• Fluency or proficiency in written/spoken French preferred
• Experience with ODK preferred
• Experience with conducting trainings or teaching experience preferred
• Experience working with GitHub desirable

Special Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

Ability to self-manage tasks and timelines while working in a team environment

• Ability to manage multiple activities, deadlines, and priorities simultaneously
• Ability to execute assignments with a short turnaround time
• Willing to travel internationally up to 30% of time
• Master’s in public health or related field, with specialization in biostatistics, epidemiology, demographic method, or other concentration with a strong quantitative/analytical field.
• Minimum of three years of data management experience, requiring advanced skills with Stata, SPSS, SAS, or R.

Must be willing to travel internationally up to 30% of time.

Classified Title: Program Officer 
Working Title: Research Program Officer  ​​​​​
Role/Level/Range: ACRP/04/MD 
Starting Salary Range: $52,495 - $72,210; Commensurate with experience
Employee group: Full Time 
Schedule: Monday - Friday, 8:30a - 5:00p / 37.5 hurs per week 
Exempt Status: Exempt  
Location: 05-MD:School of Public Health 
Department name: 10001207-PFRH Gates Institute 
Personnel area: School of Public Health

The successful candidate(s) for this position will be subject to a pre-employment background check.

If you are interested in applying for employment with The Johns Hopkins University and require special assistance or accommodation during any part of the pre-employment process, please contact the HR Business Services Office at jhurecruitment@jhu.edu. For TTY users, call via Maryland Relay or dial 711.

The following additional provisions may apply depending on which campus you will work.  Your recruiter will advise accordingly.

During the Influenza ("the flu") season, as a condition of employment, The Johns Hopkins Institutions require all employees who provide ongoing services to patients or work in patient care or clinical care areas to have an annual influenza vaccination or possess an approved medical or religious exception. Failure to meet this requirement may result in termination of employment.

The pre-employment physical for positions in clinical areas, laboratories, working with research subjects, or involving community contact requires documentation of immune status against Rubella (German measles), Rubeola (Measles), Mumps, Varicella (chickenpox), Hepatitis B and documentation of having received the Tdap (Tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis) vaccination. This may include documentation of having two (2) MMR vaccines; two (2) Varicella vaccines; or antibody status to these diseases from laboratory testing. Blood tests for immunities to these diseases are ordinarily included in the pre-employment physical exam except for those employees who provide results of blood tests or immunization documentation from their own health care providers. Any vaccinations required for these diseases will be given at no cost in our Occupational Health office.

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