Senior Scientist - Epidemiologist

Job summary

The post holder will contribute to pandemic preparedness working across the Immunisation and Vaccine Preventable Disease (IVPD) division and the Pandemic Surveillance Oversight Group (PSOG). They will develop and test database, data linkages and pipelines in preparation for incidents and the next pandemic.

In addition, the post holder will have the opportunity to be involved in other aspects of surveillance, including the analyse and interpret surveillance data and develop automated routines and solutions as well as overseeing and responding to more complex or sensitive data requests. This will be through their application of, and expertise in, analytical, statistical, database, mapping and web tools, underpinned by knowledge of information and data science approaches.

The post holder will contribute to public health scientific analyses and writing reports on specific projects, regular and ad hoc publications and peer reviewed publications.

Contributions to the work and professional development of other staff in the team are also expected, and this may extend to Health Protection colleagues to improve services and information quality. Liaison with colleagues across the Chief Medical Advisor Group, wider UKHSA and NHS colleagues at regional/local level will also be required.

Job description

The primary focus of this role will be pandemic preparedness, and development of the key data sources for infectious disease incidents and the next pandemic. Posts will involve:

• Developing a case and contact registry, which draws to together data sources from across the UK, into a single consistent database that will be used by multiple teams for the public health management of cases, and for the epidemiological analysis and modelling.
• Development of mortality surveillance, working on existing infrastructure to develop reporting of pathogen agnostic mortality data, linked to both lab and demographics to produce robust and accurate epidemiological data should it be needed in the case of an infectious disease outbreak or pandemic. In addition, postholders would also have the opportunity to work on wider respiratory infectious disease surveillance, outlined in greater detail below.

Pandemic Preparedness

• Support development of data linkages, pipelines and databases for key pandemic preparedness requirements (case and contact registry, mortality surveillance)
• Transfer of these into UKHSA’s new data and analytics platform (EDAP) where feasible
• Liasing with developed administrations to understand their requirement and barriers to be incorporated in UK wide surveillance, and where possible develop pipelines that would allow this
• Documentation of standard operation procedures, onboarding processes, data dictionaries and information governance requirements
• Working with the data team as a liaison between subject matter experts and data engineers to ensure the final process and database is both technically and epidemiologically sound.
• Testing of these processes, pipelines and databases

Surveillance

• Develop, manage and maintain the surveillance databases.
• Manage existing national surveillance systems and co-ordinate the development of new surveillance systems for acute respiratory viral infections and to supervise and advise junior scientific and administrative staff in the maintenance and development of surveillance datasets.
• Conduct complex statistical analyses of data on respiratory viruses drawn from a variety of surveillance sources in response to ad hoc enquiries from
• Government agencies, international agencies, public health practitioners, academics and members of the public.
• Advise scientific and administrative staff conducting routine analyses of surveillance datasets for standardised outputs and ad hoc enquiries.
• Supervise junior scientific colleagues and the administrative team in the production of surveillance reports and publications.
• Assist in the design and development of new surveillance and data management systems in response to developments in the application of microbiological typing methods including contributing to the drafting of Standard Operating Procedures.
• Write scientific papers for publication in peer reviewed journals and detailed reports for UKHSA or Government departments.

Outbreak Investigation

Manage the technical and analytical aspects of outbreak investigations, under the supervision of the Consultant lead, by

• Designing outbreak databases
• Liaising with relevant specialists to collect epidemiological data
• Coordinating and advising incident teams
• Interviewing clinicians and patients to collect clinical and risk factor data during incidents
• Overseeing data entry and ensuring quality control of databases
• Collating and interpreting epidemiological and microbiological data drawn from a variety of sources
• Conducting complex statistical analyses of datasets
• Providing statistical analyses for government agencies
• Writing briefing notes and situation reports
• Presenting epidemiological data to Incident Management Teams
• Contributing to the production of outbreak reports and subsequent publications.

Research

• Contribute to the development of research proposals
• Coordinate the collection and collation of data from collaborators.
• Conduct statistical analyses of epidemiological and microbiological data for grant funded research projects and UKHSA programmes.
• Provide complex statistical analyses of surveillance/research datasets to academic units and other agencies involved in collaborative research studies under the guidance of the project leader.
• Contribute to the process of writing scientific papers for publication in peer reviewed journals and project reports to funding bodies.

Publications and presentations

• Supervise staff in the production of departmental web outputs and editorial material.
• Present epidemiological findings at national and international meetings and conferences.

Teaching and Training

• Develop and present lectures and teaching materials on the epidemiology and surveillance of respiratory viruses for UKHSA, university postgraduate

Person specification

Essential criteria

• Postgraduate work/study in public health, epidemiology or an allied subject
• Experience working with, developing and linking large databases and data-sets
• Experience interpreting and evaluating epidemiological data, using SQL databases, spreadsheets, statistical (R) packages to an advanced level
• Experience writing scientific papers and/or project reports
• Ability to work independently and take responsibility for own technical work and time and to work as an effective team member
• Identify and solve day-to-day practical problems.
• Ability to work on several separate tasks at the same time, whilst keeping to agreed deadlines.
• An understanding of and commitment to equality of opportunity and good working relationships.

Desirable criteria:

• Demonstrated capability to act upon incomplete information, using experience to make inferences and decision making
• Able to communicate ideas and methods clearly and succinctly to include excellent oral and written communication skills.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £46,310, UK Health Security Agency contributes £13,416 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme.