Senior Scientist (Epidemiologist)

Job summary

The post is based in the Public Health Programmes Directorate, working in the Immunisation & Vaccine Preventable Diseases (IVPD) Division.

Vaccines have been identified as a key strategic priority for UKHSA. The IVPD Division is responsible for the national surveillance of most vaccine preventable infections and in providing technical support and clinical expertise to the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and to the NHS in planning and delivering the national immunisation programmes. These programmes provide millions of vaccines per year, across the whole life course, and are delivered in a range of NHS settings. The directorate also provides secretariat to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation who recommend any changes to the national immunisation programme and publish “Immunisation Against Infectious Disease”.

The division evaluates the national programme by generating high quality data on disease incidence, vaccine coverage, age-specific immunity, vaccine efficacy and safety and analysis of vaccine policy options (with the statistics and modelling divisions). Surveillance of vaccine preventable diseases and vaccine coverage data are vital components of the evaluation of vaccination programmes in the UK. This data informs the understanding of the epidemiology of different infections and the public health impact of vaccination programmes and help develop and improve control strategies.

Working for your organisation

We pride ourselves as being an employer of choice, where Everyone Matters promoting equality of opportunity to actively encourage applications from everyone, including groups currently underrepresented in our workforce.

UKHSA ethos is to be an inclusive organisation for all our staff and stakeholders. To create, nurture and sustain an inclusive culture, where differences drive innovative solutions to meet the needs of our workforce and wider communities. We do this through celebrating and protecting differences by removing barriers and promoting equity and equality of opportunity for all.

Please visit our careers site for more information https://gov.uk/ukhsa/careers

Job description

Surveillance

• Develop, manage and maintain the surveillance databases.
• Manage existing national surveillance systems and co-ordinate the development of new surveillance systems for acute vaccine preventable diseases 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 vaccine preventable disease pathogens 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 vaccine preventable diseases for UKHSA, university postgraduate and professional development training programmes.
• Contribute to the training for new members of staff on the epidemiology and surveillance of vaccine preventable diseases.

Professional Development

• Identify, discuss and action own professional performance and training / development needs with your line manager through appraisal / individual development plan.
• Attend internal and external training events.
• Participate in all mandatory training as required, i.e. fire safety, information governance and all other mandatory training.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will:

• Contribute to enhanced surveillance systems and research studies of respiratory diseases
• Lead and support on data collection and validation, and production of routine surveillance intelligence in these areas.
• 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.

This post will also carry out the epidemiological investigation of incidents and outbreaks of infectious diseases, supporting others across the directorate, local Health Protection Teams and in collaboration with other partners. This will include the design, implementation, analysis and interpretation of analytical studies in a variety of settings and supporting team members in carrying out these tasks.

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.

Please note, the above is not exhaustive.

Person specification

Essential Criteria

• Higher degree in Epidemiology, Public Health or an allied subject.
• Postgraduate work/study in public health, epidemiology or an allied subject.
• Interpreting and evaluating epidemio