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Job details:
** Deadline to apply is 11 June 2026 **
Description of assignment title
Public Health Expert (Epidemiology) - WHO-SEARO
Assignment country
India
Duty stations
New Delhi
Work location
Remote
Host entity
WHO IND
Modality
Onsite
Type
International
Volunteer category
Expert
Work schedule
Full-time
Number of Assignments
1
Expected start date
01/07/2026
Duration
12 months (with possibility of extension)
Task description
1) Support regional frameworks and integrated surveillance, including WES, under the MDE agenda (primary focus area)
• Support development of a regional WES strategy under the EC HERA initiative, including coordination across technical units and alignment with the MDE agenda.
• Contribute to a regional WES policy brief, including synthesis of evidence on use cases, cost effectiveness, and implications for multi pathogen surveillance.
• Assist coordination with partners to harmonize approaches and consolidate regional feedback into global WES guidance and decision support tools.
• Support organization of regional virtual/in person inception workshops to present WES aims, current workstreams, and introduce the decision support tool for pathogen prioritization.
• Provide high level support to the development and rollout of the regional WES strategy, including broad contributions to pathogen prioritization, country engagement, integration within existing surveillance platforms, operational planning, sustainability and costing considerations, and facilitation of multisectoral collaboration.
• Contribute to the finalization and implementation of the Regional Communicable Disease Surveillance Framework, including peer-reviewed publications, follow up actions, documentation, and preparation for technical discussions/consultations.
• Support country specific surveillance action plan components aligned with the regional framework.
• Assist exploratory work on integrated/cross programme surveillance relevant to MDE, including early scoping for alignment points across Communicable Diseases (CDs), Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs), and mental health surveillance streams (not full integration yet; initial mapping/scoping).
• Support collaboration with Health Information Systems/digital health teams on interoperability, data flows, validation and visualization (cross cutting digital surveillance work).
2) Partnerships, Communication & Visibility
• Conduct donor landscape scans and maintain profiles of funding partners; track opportunities.
• Draft and review concept notes, donor briefs, proposal inputs, and partner engagement materials aligned with surveillance priorities.
• Contribute to resource mobilization materials and presentations to enhance visibility of Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Control's (HDC’s) Surveillance & Epidemiology portfolio
• Prepare communication/visibility materials (factsheets, briefs, web content, presentations, success stories).
• Develop social media ready outputs and support updates to the Team’s/Department’s webpages, in close collaboration with the Youth Forum activities.
3) Evidence generation and strengthening pathogen confirmation for diseases not covered under dedicated programmes
• Produce evidence products (e.g., burden reports, tools to facilitate data to action) for selected emerging or currently non reported diseases in SEAR (initial focus: chikungunya/zika, scrub typhus).
• Conduct desk reviews; analyse available surveillance and laboratory data; summarize country practices, gaps and reporting challenges.
• Consult with laboratories, One Health teams, WHO Health Emergencies Programme (WHE), HIS, and Country Office colleagues to understand diagnostic and surveillance bottlenecks.
• Propose feasible options for strengthened indicator based surveillance, basic case detection models, and simple burden estimation approaches.
• Contribute to the drafting of a pilot protocol for multiplex diagnostic tests at primary health care level to enhance pathogen confirmation, reduce reliance on syndromic surveillance, and improve overall indicator based surveillance quality.
• Any other task assigned by the supervisor.
4) NCD and mental health surveillance and epidemiology
• Support analytical work related to NCD surveillance systems, including reviewing Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) functionality, cause of death data availability, quality and reporting completeness.
• Assist in developing/adapting tools and mapping and summarizing risk factor surveillance, identifying gaps in adult, adolescent and youth data coverage.
• Support designing, compilation and synthesis of information on cancer registries and other NCD registries (e.g., diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) events, stroke), including documentation of coverage, digitization and data quality challenges.
• Contribute to reviews of patient level NCD data systems, including digitization status, interoperability and alignment with WHO’s NCD Facility Based Monitoring Guidance.
• Support analysis and documentation of SEAHEARTS (https://www.who.int/southeastasia/activities/seahearts-for-accelerating-cvd-control) implementation across Member States, including digital hypertension/diabetes tracking systems.
• Assist in early scoping of mental health surveillance, including mapping existing indicators, data sources and gaps.
• Contribute to identifying opportunities for harmonizing NCDs including the risk factors and mental health indicators within broader, integrated surveillance efforts under the MDE umbrella.
• Assist burden estimation exercises; support planning/review of longitudinal cohort studies and seroprevalence surveys (methods/tools, synthesis of findings).
Nationality
There are no nationality requirements for remote assignments. Successful candidates will need to provide proof of citizenship, residency and/or right to work in their remote work location. In the case of refugees, candidates need to provide proof of their protected status in the country. Proof of address will also be required.
Relevant experience
7 years
Languages
English, Level: Fluent, Required
Required education level
Master's degree in Public Health, Epidemiology, Medicine, or Infectious Diseases with documented academic or applied focus on disease surveillance, health data analysis, or health systems monitoring. PhD in these domains will be preferred.
Desirable: Training certification in public health surveillance methods, programme monitoring, or health information systems.
Skills and experience
o At least seven years of professional experience in public health surveillance, epidemiology, communicable disease control, or health information systems, preferably within a national public health institution, ministry of health, academic, or research setting.
o Demonstrated experience working with routine health data, surveillance indicators and basic epidemiologic analysis.
Desirable:
o Experience contributing to communicable disease surveillance activities such as
o indicator monitoring,
o data reviews,
o dashboards,
o CRVS, registries, or routine reporting systems.
o Exposure to and familiarity with:
o NCD or mental health data within population health monitoring or surveillance contexts.
o laboratory or environmental surveillance data, AMR, wastewater surveillance, One Health surveillance, or coordination with laboratory partners
o Experience working collaboratively with diverse stakeholders, including government counterparts, technical partners, communities, or multisectoral teams.
o Experience preparing technical outputs such as:
o Technical briefs,
o reports,
o presentations,
o communication materials
o resource mobilization inputs
o Experience in preparing scientific literature, including proven track record of publication of manuscripts in high-impact peer-reviewed journals (ideally as first, second or last author)
NOTE: CANDITATES WITH PROVEN WORK EXPERIENCE IN SOUTH-EAST ASIAN REGION MEMBER STATES (SEAR MS) WILL BE GIVEN PREFERENCE.
Skills required:
• Ability to draft clear and concise technical documents in English.
• Excellent computer skills, including mastery of standard office applications (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) and basic data handling tools.
Desirable:
• Strong analytical and research skills, with the ability to interpret surveillance data and synthesize findings for decision making.
• Ability to support public health surveillance analysis, including basic data cleaning, indicator interpretation, and development of simple visualizations.
• Strong technical writing and communication skills.
• Good interpersonal and teamwork skills, with the ability to collaborate across programmes and communicate effectively with diverse partners.
• Ability to manage multiple tasks, meet deadlines, and work efficiently with minimal supervision.
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