Public Health Scientist

  • Full-time

Company Description

With a workforce of over 30,000 people, and opportunities in more than 1,000 different job categories, the City of Philadelphia is the fifth largest city in the United States and one of the largest employers in Southeastern Pennsylvania. As an employer, the City of Philadelphia operates through the guiding principles of service, integrity, respect, accountability, collaboration, diversity and inclusion. Through these principles, we strive to effectively deliver services, to resolve the challenges facing our city, and to make Philadelphia a place where all of our residents have the opportunity to reach their potential.

Agency Description

The mission of the Department of Public Health is to protect and promote the health of all Philadelphians and to provide a safety net for the most vulnerable

Job Description

The Public Health Scientist performs work at the senior epidemiological expert level in the planning, management, and implementation of chronic disease and injury prevention surveillance and data analytic activities.  Significant to the work is managing, analyzing, and interpreting data on core measures to track program effectiveness and developing and disseminating evaluation products. This employee has content expertise in injury prevention, particularly related to issues of gun violence, alcohol, and crashes, and in chronic disease epidemiology which represent significant causes of early death, disability and health disparities within the city, as well as expertise in oral and written communications. Work includes developing and writing reports and creating graphic representations of data. The public health scientist will supervise several data analysts and reports to the Director of Research and Evaluation.

Essential Functions:

  • Reviews existing literature on topics related to injury prevention, and chronic conditions
  • Helps to develop new evaluation and analysis projects based on division needs
  • Analyzes data independently and interprets findings to inform program and policy development
  • Develops products of evaluation, including reports, data briefs, presentations, and manuscripts
  • Participates in grant writing and manuscript development for peer-reviewed journals
  • Supervises the work of one or more research associates (data analysts)
  • Participates in division data meetings
  • Collaborates with other research and evaluation staff and with the Chief Epidemiologist on analysis projects and reports

Qualifications

Qualifications

  • Master’s in Public Health or Epidemiology, PhD preferred
  • Minimum 2 years of experience
  • Or Any equivalent combination of education and experience determined to be acceptable by the Office of Human Resources

Competencies, Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

KNOWLEDGE OF:

  • General public health principles, as well as specific content expertise in injury prevention and chronic disease, particularly diabetes, heart disease, tobacco, gun violence, alcohol, and crashes
  • Public health surveillance systems
  • Expertise in quantitative methods for evaluation and data analysis including experimental, quasi-experimental, and observational study designs
  • Experience in qualitative methods for evaluation including conducting focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and thematic coding and analysis
  • Human subjects protection rules and regulations
  • Institutional Review Board submission procedures and processes
  • Rules and regulations to protect confidentiality of personal health information
  • Statistical, analytic and data management software, particularly in SAS, R, STATA, and SPSS
  • Supervisory methods and techniques
  • Survey design and development
  • Expertise in health disparities research, including applying health justice principles to scientific inquiry
  • Experience with a wide range of data sources including administrative data, national datasets, electronic health record data, and primary collection of internal research and evaluation project datasets

ABILITY TO:

  • Apply biostatistics in support of epidemiological practice
  • Design and conduct epidemiological investigations
  • Use statistical software packages to conduct data analysis
  • Design and conduct program evaluations
  • Develop and manage databases effectively to support surveillance and analysis
  • Critically review division data analysis and reporting related to nutrition, physical activity, tobacco control, gun violence, alcohol abuse, and crashes
  • Understand and implement descriptive and inferential analytic techniques
  • Provide detailed guidance to direct reports on how to implement analytic techniques in common statistical software programs (e.g., SAS, R, SPSS)
  • Lead and contribute to writing competitive public health grant applications
  • Balance methodological expertise and content expertise in chronic disease prevention
  •  Experience with a wide range of data sources including administrative data, national datasets, electronic health record data, and primary collection of internal research and evaluation project datasets
  • Communicate clearly and effectively both orally and in writing to diverse audiences

Additional Information

Successful candidate must be a City resident within six months of hire. 

The City of Philadelphia is an Equal Opportunity employer and does not permit discrimination based on race, ethnicity, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, marital status, source of income, familial status, genetic information or domestic or sexual violence victim status. If you believe you were discriminated against, call the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations at 215-686-4670 or send an email to faqpchr @phila.gov. For more information, go to: Human Relations Website: http://www.phila.gov/humanrelations/Pages/default.aspx