Senior Epidemiologist
County of Santa Clara
Full-time
On-site
San Jose, California, United States
$151,311.68 - $183,928.16 USD yearly
Description
Under general supervision, to conduct a broad and complex range of investigative and analytical epidemiologic functions using epidemiologic and statistical methods; to lead epidemiologic investigations and data projects for the prevention and control of specific communicable and chronic diseases, injuries, and other health conditions; may assist in the planning and development of health programs and policies, surveillance systems, and strategies aimed at controlling and preventing disease; and may lead lower-level professional Epidemiologists.
Typical Tasks
The following are the duties performed by employees in this classification. However, employees may perform other related duties at an equivalent level. Each individual in the classification does not necessarily perform all duties listed.
- Serves as a lead in the monitoring of the health of county residents and health disparities between populations in a timely and effective manner;
- Leads, monitors, and analyzes State, County, City, and census tract level data to identify trends and progress towards national goals;
- Works with Senior Leadership to determine data analytic organizational goals;
- Leads staff in the production and dissemination of Countywide dashboards, reports, maps, and visualizations for internal and external stakeholders on health and social determinants of health;
- Provides input on data governance policy creation;
- Leads epidemiologic investigations using established scientific and technical methods and practices to identify and evaluate a wide range of health conditions and underlying determinants within an assigned program area;
- Works to identify and reveal trends, patterns, and relationships in data to provide guidance for Senior Leadership decision making processes;
- Provides expertise in determining the right type of analytics or statistics to apply to data sets collected and utilized by the department or County;
- Provides input on data governance policy creation;
- Develops standards and best practice procedures for data validation, analysis, and presentation;
- Creates and implements techniques for data collection, accuracy, and management;
- Provides data analysis coaching to team members;
- Leads data-related issues around quality and analytical production; queries and profiles data to determine conformance to standards and fit for purpose; classifies and organizes data for ease of use and access control purposes;
- Pinpoints trends, correlations, and patterns in complicated data sets;
- Leads documentation and maintains all data management procedures and specifications; identifies opportunities to increase data quality, including automation and data entry procedural training;
- Provides guidance to data stewards in the range of stewardship activities and best practices;
- Monitors and provides status reports on data lifecycle and analytical workflow processes;
- Leads creation of open datasets, including populating and extracting data from internal and public open datasets; extracts and manages multiple sets of data from various databases and sources, bringing together data from several channels for comparative analysis;
- Mines and analyzes data using advanced statistical tools and techniques;
- Documents and maintains record of all data management activities;
- Extracts and manages multiple sets of data from various databases, bringing together data from various sources;
- Performs epidemiologic functions, including the collection, description, analysis, and reporting of health, demographic, and other data using epidemiologic methods;
- Performs advanced analytics and statistical models to identify trends, patterns, and relationships;
- Plans, directs, oversees, and manages outbreak and other public health investigations of diseases and other conditions through the development of instruments for data collection and analysis using the most current statistical techniques commonly used in epidemiologic evaluations;
- Leads or directs population-based health assessments applying both quantitative and qualitative research methods, which may include data collection in the field;
- Conducts, oversees, and evaluates the design, development, and management of surveillance systems, surveys, survey tools, and health needs assessments for the collection of surveillance data;
- Researches, develops, and maintains surveillance plans; oversees the development and maintenance of surveillance plans by lower-level professional epidemiologists;
- Monitors, analyzes, and reports on Federal, State, and local data and other information sources to identify health trends, emerging public health threats and problems, and progress towards meeting specific benchmarks and targets; determines feasibility of, and approach to, epidemiologic investigations to address findings;
- Oversees the design, management and maintenance, matching, evaluation, and use of databases for all epidemiologic functions;
- Develops research questions, formulates and tests hypotheses, conducts and oversees literature reviews and studies that support the design of programs, policy development, publications, and evaluation activities;
- Prepares reports from analyses of data from surveillance, health assessments, research, and evaluation using epidemiologic, demographic, and behavioral science analytic techniques and other research and evaluation methods, as needed;
- Collects and provides data used in the control, detection, and prevention of diseases and other health conditions, in the evaluation of health programs, and in grant preparation;
- Conduct descriptive and advanced statistical analyses in the course of epidemiologic or other investigations using epidemiologic, statistical, and data visualization tools and software;
- Conducts and oversees advanced statistical modeling, including predictive modeling, cost-benefit analyses, return on investment analyses, and other advanced analysis, as needed;
- Prepares, writes, edits, reviews, and approves written and oral reports, posters, data visualizations, presentations, and other materials that communicate necessary information to professional audiences, policy makers, and the general public using appropriate communication platforms and approaches;
- Works as a liaison to outside data-generating entities and maintains partnerships for sharing and using data;
- Consults on technical problems where solutions may not conform to established protocols and may require the modification of approaches or applications in a specialty area;
- Participates in the creation of the epidemiologic unit's vision in support of the agency's strategic and operational plans;
- Presents epidemiological research data and findings to a wide range of professionals, policy makers, community planning groups, conferences, and research meetings;
- May develop requests for proposals and contracts for data analysis and evaluation projects, and may direct and review contract work;
- Develops recommendations for evidence-based strategies and disease control measures in response to epidemiologic findings within an appropriate cultural and social framework;
- May act as a lead for Epidemiologists and other staff;
- Provides scientific advice and technical assistance to public health programs and outside partners on data quality, data collection methods, tool development, analysis, reporting, and the use of epidemiologic data;
- Leads the development and operationalization of emerging and transformational data projects, technologies, and tools;
- Ensures that accurate records and files related to work performed are documented and secured;
- Participates in writing grants and other funding proposals;
- Monitors and maintains ethical, privacy, and security issues related to health data;
- Provides technical guidance for and quality checks on the work of lower-level professional epidemiologists;
- Develops systems and procedures to ensure data quality, accuracy, validity, and reliability;
- Trains, on-boards, coaches, and provides technical assistance to lower-level professional epidemiologists and supports development of subject matter expertise in the epidemiology of multiple public health focus areas;
- Organizes, facilitates, and presents department projects and assessments to various community workgroups, advisory groups, or steering committees;
- Reviews and approves data that supports response to public inquiries and fulfills media-related and other stakeholders' data requests;
- Serves on appropriate committees and/or work groups and programs to plan and execute surveillance and epidemiology projects;
- Conducts studies designed to identify segments of the population at greatest risk of acquiring specific diseases or other health conditions, and to identify risk factors associated with each;
- Utilizes culturally sensitive epidemiologic practices and methodologies;
- Performs public health investigations of diseases and other conditions;
- May be assigned as a Disaster Service Worker (DSW), as required*;
- Performs other related duties, as required.
Employment Standards
Sufficient education, training, and experience to demonstrate the possession and direct application of the following knowledge and abilities:
Training and Experience Note: The required knowledge and abilities are attained through possession of a Master's Degree, or higher, Epidemiology, Public Health, Biostatistics, Health Informatics, Mathematics, Statistics, Data Science, Social Science, or closely related field
and
Four (4) years of full-time work experience performing epidemiologic functions that include surveillance, data collection, data analysis, and research within a public health safety entity, healthcare delivery setting, or academic institution;
OR
Possession of a Bachelor's Degree in Epidemiology, Public Health, Biostatistics, Health Informatics, Mathematics, Statistics, Data Science, Social Science, or closely related field
and
Six (6) years of full-time work experience performing epidemiologic functions that include surveillance, data collection, data analysis, and research within a public health or healthcare delivery setting, or internships/fellowships or assistant research positions in an academic setting;
OR
Two (2) years of experience equivalent to an Epidemiologist II in the County of Santa Clara.
A Doctoral Degree in Epidemiology, Public Health, Biostatistics, Health Informatics, Mathematics, Statistics, Data Science, Social Science, or closely related field may be substituted for one (1) year of the required epidemiology work experience.
A healthcare delivery setting is defined as a place that provides diagnosis, treatment, and prevention, or rehabilitation care services, to an individual and/or population.
Special Requirements:
- Ability to travel to alternate locations in the course of work. If driving, possession of a valid California Driver's License prior to appointment and the ability to qualify for and maintain a County driver authorization.
- *As a condition of employment, pursuant to California Government Code Sections 3100-3109 and Local Ordinance, all County of Santa Clara employees are designated Disaster Service Workers (DSWs), including extra help. A DSW is required to complete all assigned DSW-related training, and in the event of an emergency, return to work as ordered.
Knowledge of:
- Principles and practices of lead supervision and project management;
- Performance management and quality improvement principles and tools;
- Principles and practices of epidemiology, including investigation, research, and communicable and chronic disease control and prevention in the community;
- Advanced concepts of public health reporting, information system standards, and public health data;
- Advanced spreadsheets and databases and basic data science skills;
- Relational databases, data extraction, querying, and scripting;
- Data visualizations and reporting tools to present information to a variety of audiences using presentation layer tools;
- Data stewardship regulatory requirements and industry best practices;
- Trends, correlations, and patterns in data sets;
- Methods to increase data quality;
- Scripting and coding to automate and monitor data management processes;
- Extracting and managing multiple sets of data from various databases and sources, bringing together data from several channels for comparative analysis;
- Advanced data exploration steps (pivoting, summarizing, and finding correlations and logistic regressions for example);
- Advanced statistical and data science tools and techniques;
- Grant proposal writing and funding sources;
- Epidemiology within an area of emphasis traditionally found within a public health system, such as aging, infectious disease, environmental health and toxicology, cancer, injury, chronic disease, maternal/child health, etc.;
- Principles and practices of biostatistics;
- Research methodology and preparation of scientific research reports;
- Theories, intervention techniques, policies, and principles of preventive health care;
- Health and social determinants of health indicators;
- Advanced analytical and interpretative skills, statistical techniques, and evaluation principles;
- Surveillance database and data systems development, management, maintenance, and analysis;
- Academic databases used in conducting literature reviews;
- Analytical, statistical, programming, geographic mapping, data visualization, or business intelligence software applications or tools used for epidemiology;
- Data warehousing process, open data technology, and informatics relative to the field of epidemiology;
- Federal, State, and local laws, regulations, and policies governing data reporting requirements, and data element standardization and analysis;
- English usage, style, grammar, punctuation, and spelling;
- Common computer systems and applications.
Ability to:
- Develop pertinent research questions necessary to monitor the health of the population;
- Lead and train lower-level epidemiologists in the operation and use of epidemiology data and analysis;
- Recognize the role of economic, cultural, social, and behavioral factors while interviewing and performing investigation activities and adapt approaches accordingly;
- Maintain relational databases and data systems;
- Mine and analyze data;
- Perform data cleaning;
- Document and maintain records;
- Catalog data sources;
- Design reporting dashboards;
- Use presentations tools;
- Prepare grant applications and funding sources;
- Apply and direct basic and advanced epidemiology concepts and methods across a range of public health content areas, such as infectious disease, chronic disease, maternal/child health, social determinants of health, environmental health, etc.;
- Lead and direct epidemiologic assessments, including data collection, analysis, and reporting, and present findings using multiple formats;
- Apply research methodology in the collection of quantitative and qualitative data;
- Apply and direct others in using the appropriate statistical, mapping, and informatics software to compile data, create reports and maps, and perform related tasks;
- Research and integrate data from various sources to create data sets as needed;
- Read, interpret, and conduct advanced data analysis from multiple data sources;
- Assess and understand stakeholders' needs and develop the necessary deliverables to meet those needs;
- Organize projects and manage time effectively, applying independent judgment and initiative;
- Analyze and solve problems logically;
- Apply principles of good ethical/legal practice as they relate to study design and data collection and dissemination;
- Establish and maintain effective working relationships with those contacted in the course of work, at all levels, including colleagues, the public, and representatives of other agencies;
- Communicate effectively, both orally and in writing, with people of diverse backgrounds and cultures.