Social Scientist- “Transforming Intermittent Preventive Treatment for Optimal Pregnancy”

The Barcelona Institute for Global Health, ISGlobal, is the fruit of an innovative alliance between academic, government, and philanthropic institutions to contribute to the efforts undertaken by the international community to address the challenges in global health. ISGlobal provides a hub of excellence dedicated to scientific research and the provision of health care. The institute, which originated in a joint initiative of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona and the University of Barcelona, has amassed over 30 years of experience in the field of global health. The pivotal mechanism of its work model is the transfer of knowledge generated by scientific research to practice, a task undertaken by the Research, Training and Policy and Global Development departments. Its ultimate goal is to help close the gaps in health disparities between and within different regions of the world.
ISGlobal is seeking an experienced Social Anthropologist who is interested in taking over and managing activities of the project “Transforming Intermittent Preventive Treatment for Optimal Pregnancy” (TIPTOP). The overall project goal is to contribute to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality by expanding access to intermittent preventive treatment in pregnancy (IPTp) with quality-assured (QA) sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP).

The five-year project, started in 2017, funded by UNITAID and coordinated by Jhpiego, an affiliate of Johns Hopkins University, will increase malaria in pregnancy IPTp-SP coverage and expand antenatal care attendance primarily through Community Health Workers (CHW) in four African countries - Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nigeria. The Jhpiego-led consortium includes Jhpiego as principal recipient and implementing partner responsible to UNITAID for the implementation of the Project and ISGlobal, the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, as lead research and evaluation partner. The consortium will work closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) and Malaria Medicines Venture (MMV) as well as other stakeholders, to ensure that all project outputs are met.

The Project will establish a scalable model across four countries to generate evidence for change and expand access to preventive chemotherapy for pregnant women. TIPTOP will apply a community-based approach that fosters partnership and strengthens the dynamic link between communities and health facilities, especially for the most vulnerable people. A learning-driven approach will be employed throughout the project to guide expansion in a two-phase process and generate sufficient evidence to inform WHO policy recommendations and future actions in each country, in an effort to expand the intervention over the long-term.

ISGlobal is the lead evaluation and research organization and is responsible for implementing a set of studies to generate evidence for global guidance on community IPTp-SP. Specifically, ISGlobal will be responsible for designing and implementing the project's evaluation plan, as well as designing, analyzing and reporting the operational research studies to assess the cost and acceptability and feasibility of the intervention and its impact. These will be done through household surveys, feasibility studies, costing studies —and also assistance to ensure the quality of routine monitoring data.

 

Under the guidance of the Project Coordinator and of the Senior Technical Coordinator will:

• Conduct acceptability and feasibility studies in close collaboration with local counterparts in Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nigeria.
• Develop study protocols in collaboration with local counterparts identified by ISGlobal, and supervise data collection activities.
• Quality assurance for the data analysis leading to reporting and scientific publications.
• Develop procedures and guidelines for the conduction of the social research with local counterparts in Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nigeria.
• Coordinate, supervise and perform training activities with local counterparts as required.
• Coordinate and supervise the work of a junior social scientist (pre-doc position) if necessary. At this moment no junior social scientist position foreseen.
• Interact with colleagues in ISGlobal, Jphiego and local counterparts in Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nigeria.
• Report activities of the project.
• Scientific writing of manuscripts derived of the research activities.

Fixed-term contract for all project length (about 36 months), office-based in Barcelona, starting in as soon as possible.

Salary according to the candidate profile and project budget.

The closing date for receipt of application is 31st January 2019.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted

 

The candidate will be expected to:

• Travel to project sites in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nigeria as required by project's activities. Potential travels to other African countries, or project coordination or annual meetings might be needed.
• Provide technical advice to local counterparts, conduct training and supervise data collection activities in Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nigeria.
• Interact with consortium partners and other organizations (WHO, MMV) and stakeholders that may be involved in the project and the acceptability studies as required (i.e., ethics committees).
• Prepare and present records of the activities to the Project Coordinator and the Senior Technical Advisor, reports to JHPIEGO, UNITAID and eventually a manuscript summarizing the activities conducted in the project as well as potential applications for competitive grants.
• Coordinate meetings, teleconferences and prepare summaries of the discussions with participants in the project, as well as with researchers and staff from other African institutions and partners involved in the acceptability studies (e.g. Jhpiego, ISGlobal local counterparts in Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Mozambique and Nigeria).
• Carry out any other duties that are within the scope, spirit and purpose of the job, as requested by the Project Coordinator and the Senior Technical Advisor.