Consultant Demographer at African Population and Health Research Center

APHRC invites applications for a Consultant Demographer to lead the re-design of its Nairobi Urban Health and Demographic Surveillance System (NUHDSS) project for a 6 month engagement. 

The successful candidate will lead the re-design of the NUHDSS project to ensure that the NUHDSS achieves its primary purpose while mitigating the aforementioned challenges and considering the all or some of the following key questions that have arisen regarding improving the utility of the NUHDSS. These key questions include, but are not limited to:

1. How should the re-designed NUHDSS position itself in order to generate evidence that is relevant to the national and regional policy processes and that is cognizant of existing intra-slum and intra-urban inequities?
2. How should the re-designed NUHDSS be implemented in order to have impact both at the local level and on a wider intra urban scale?
3. Which approach would enable the re-designed NUHDSS to achieve its goals: a whole population surveillance or a thematic, sub-population surveillance?
4. How can lessons learned from previous membership in HDSS networks be addressed in the re-designed NUHDSS? Such lessons include: few or no Principal Investigators in HDSSs in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), limited engagement with the East African society, low productivity in terms of scientific outputs and a lack of a community of practice in HDSS science.
5. How can the re-designed NUHDSS use advancements in technology to inform methodology for evidence generation and dissemination, e.g. data science methodologies, real-time capture of vital-statistics indicators, and linkages between HDSS data and health facility (hospital) data?
6. Should the re-designed NUHDSS exclude or include surveillance data pertaining to a) various forms of exposure to health risks; b) access to and use of health services; c) access to and use of other social amenities; and/or d) on health and other social outcomes?
7. Should the re-designed NUHDSS limit its scope to selected socially vulnerable groups such as, children, women, adolescents, the elderly?
8. Should the re-designed NUHDSS have a special focus on an environment and health agenda that includes, low toilet ownership, contaminated drinking water, solid waste management, and, indoor and outdoor air pollution, among others?
9. How can the re-designed NUHDSS incorporate safety measures to protect data collection teams as well as the respondents in the face of highly infectious outbreaks such as the Covid-19 pandemic?

The Consultant Roles and responsibilities

The anticipated roles and responsibilities may include but not limited to:

• Lead, supervise and carry out the work pertaining to the benchmarking that informs the re-design
• Lead, supervise and participate in the development two to three topical issues (and related indicators) in the urban space that highlight existing intra-slum and intra-urban inequities in Nairobi City in order to be relevant to the national and regional policy processes
• Lead, supervise and participate in the development of a new NUHDSS protocol project that addresses the challenges listed above for submission to desired institutional ethical approvals
• Advise on mobilization of resources for the NUHDSS project to ensure its financial sustainability.

Qualifications

• PhD Degree in Demography, Population Studies, Public Health or Statistics with an emphasis on Demography
• Minimum 7 years of professional experience in the implementation and management of HDSS or related longitudinal population studies
• Knowledge of methods of demographic analyses and theories that pertain to urbanization, urban demographic change and/or urban population trends
• Experience in developing protocols
• Excellent communication (written and spoken) and interpersonal skills
• Strong organizational and program management skills
• Ability to take initiative and work both independently and in teams.