Behavioral and Social Drivers (BeSD) Project Coordinator African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET)

Job Opportunity

Position: Behavioral and Social Drivers (BeSD) Project Coordinator
Programme: Support uptake of COVID-19 Vaccination in Zambia
Number of vacancies: (01)
Contract duration: 12 Months
Duty Stations: CDC Country Office – Lusaka, Zambia
Application Deadline: Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Background:

The African Field Epidemiology Network (AFENET) is a non-profit organization established in 2005 with a mission to improve human health through the strengthening and expansion of applied epidemiology and laboratory capacity in partnership with Ministries of Health, Non-Governmental Organizations, international agencies, private sector and other public health agencies. AFENET has its headquarters in Kampala, Uganda with operations in more than 30 African Countries.

Many countries in the African region are struggling to achieve high uptake of COVID-19 vaccines despite adequate supply. To increase vaccine coverage, it is crucial to understand behavioral and
social drivers (BeSD) of low vaccination locally. Global guidance for achieving high uptake of BeSD of
vaccination was recently published in 2022. However, traditional methodology for collecting
such BeSD require expensive and often time-consuming surveys that are typically conducted nationally, and only conducted periodically-not regularly- to monitor drivers and barriers of vaccination, track trends, and examine long-term impact of potential interventions.

Routine tracking of core BeSD indicators will offer insights into how to continually improve program
implementation by generating timely and localized insights on vaccine demand. These insights
will enable national and subnational immunization teams to be responsive, address demand gaps, and
ultimately increase COVID-19 vaccination uptake. Global partners, including WHO and GAVI, have expressed a need for regular collection, analysis, and use of BeSD drivers and barriers to COVID-19
vaccination at the country-level, both nationally and subnationally. The objectives of this pilot
exercise are to 1) establish a methodology to regularly collect data on validated BeSD core indicators at
the community level, leveraging existing data collection modalities or introducing enabling technologies such as short message service (SMS) and/or Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology and 2) demonstrate a feasible and acceptable aggregate information system (i.e. DHIS2) that can support national and subnational routine analysis and use of BeSD data

AFENET seeks a candidate for a full-time position to support the Ministry of Health and CDC Zambia and US CDC team and partners to establish a system for collecting BeSD data and integrate the system with the national HMIS.

Major responsibilities:

1. Support the Ministry of Health, AKROS, HISP-Zambia, CDC team, during planning, implementation, and dissemination of results from the BeSD project, including the following
activities:

a. Support the development of a data collection system for collecting behavioral and social
drivers’ data from the community, including functional and non-functional system
requirements, data elements, and reporting requirements
b. Provide technical support in the development of training materials and awareness of the BeSD data collection system
c. Support the role out of the BeSD data collection system
d. Raise awareness among communities of the need for collecting BeSD
e. Monitor the quality of collected BeSD data, and enhance the use of these data at every level of the health system
f. Facilitate the integration of the BeSD data collection system with the National Information system DHIS2 for routine monitoring of BeSD data

2. Coordination and collaboration:

a. Coordinate activities between MoH, AKROS, HISP-Zambia and CDC, ensure the
activities align with the workplan and implemented according to the timeline
b. Participate in meetings and workshops in Zambia relevant to implementing BeSD
information system, BeSD data collection, analysis and dissemination
c. Prepare workplans and budgets for CDC/AFENET-supported activities related to BeSD
project and share with key stakeholders for feedback
d. Organize and help to facilitate meetings and workshops and routinely communicate with Ministry of Health officials, partners in Zambia as relevant to progress activities
e. Organize and regularly attend meetings with the CDC-Zambia Project PoC, MoH staff, AKROS and other collaborating partners
f. Develop and submit written and/or verbal progress reports to AFENET and CDC-Zambia, CDC -HQ at the required frequencies

3. Perform other duties as assigned that are directly related to this position.

Required Qualifications and experience:

• The applicant should hold a Master’s degree in Public Health, Informatics, Epidemiology or
  related field
• At least five years of experience in planning, implementation and/or monitoring and evaluation
  of health information systems in Zambia
• Experience working with District Health Information System (DHIS)2 or other related HMIS
• Proven experience in data use, data quality, data management and advocacy for evidence
  informed decision making.