Nature and Scope of the Position

The Public Health Expert will ensure that Mercy-USA‘s health and nutrition program meets minimum Mercy-USA and international standards and minimize avoidable mortality and morbidity among populations of concern. The Public Health Expert supports and provides guidance to the health and nutrition focal points and officers in our field offices and supported facilities.

Duties and Responsibilities

• Observe health status to recognize and solve community health issues;
• Encourage community partnerships and action to identify and resolve health-related issues;
• Implement laws and regulations that secure health and ensure safety;
• Ensure qualified public and personal health care staff;
• Identify and investigate health issues and health hazards;
• Develop plans and policies that help individual and community health initiatives;
• Search for new ideas and innovative solutions to health issues;
• Notify, educate, and empower people regarding health problems;
• Design and use monitoring tools, like screening, lab records, and vital information, to recognize health risks;
• Develop tools to address behavioral causes of diseases;
• Assess the effectiveness of recommended risk reduction actions or other interventions;
• Recognize groups at threat for specific preventable diseases;
• Carry out epidemiological research of acute and chronic diseases;
• Prepare precautionary health reports, which include problem explanations, analyses, alternate solutions, and suggestions;
• Manage or coordinate the work of doctors, nurses, statisticians, or other staff members;
• Educate or train medical team regarding precautionary medicine problems;
• Design, implement, or assess health service delivery systems to enhance the health of specific communities;
• Support the health team at the field/site level in the fulfillment of their duties according to the program design; in particular providing supervision, direction, and mentoring to the facility in charge and other health workers, ensuring program quality to relevant internationally recognized standards;
• Enhance supply management at the district level by tracking supply movements and timely requisition through the storekeeper and the facility in charge to donors to enable efficient service delivery.
• Ensure pharmaceuticals and other supplies are adequate and are properly stored;
• Work with the RHMT and DHMTs;
• Support RHMT/DHMT HMIS capacity;
• Oversee and support facility-level use of HMIS tools;
• Review and analyze health data for decision making;
• Develop health staff capacity for data analysis and data use for decision making;
• Support implementation of HMIS data quality improvement procedures (quality checks, facility visits, etc.);
• Improve facility-level capacity to develop simple, hand-drawn data analytics (ex: charts placed on the wall) and to use data;
• Contribute to programmatic reports;
• Other tasks assigned by the supervisor

Academic

• A clinical background with postgraduate training/Degree in Public Health or related field, Master’s degree in Public Health is desired
• Knowledge of public health, nutrition, and HIV in humanitarian emergencies

Experience

• A minimum of 3 years in a similar position

Work-related skills

• Good organizational and analytical skills,
• Excellent knowledge of Microsoft Office (especially excel),
• Aggressive and Result Oriented,
• Able to meet set targets on a monthly basis,
• Able to meet deadlines,
• Knowledge of data and information management software

Personal attributes

• Ability to work under pressure,
• Trustworthy,
• Team player,
• Strong interpersonal skills,
• Strong customer relations skills,
• Integrity,
• Willingness to travel to remote areas.
• Should be based in Burco