The Trachoma Control Program works with ministries of health in five African countries to eliminate blinding trachoma, the world's leading cause of preventable blindness. (Photo: The Carter Center)
The Carter Center's Trachoma Control Program (TCP) seeks a qualified graduate student for the 2024-2025 session. The graduate assistant (GA) will support the program with a wide range of projects related to program research, research development, and implementation. Specifically, the GA may support programmatic studies which commenced in 2023 or will commence in 2024 in Niger, Ethiopia, and South Sudan, three countries with constantly changing transmission dynamics. In addition to research-related tasks, the GA may contribute to country-specific program support, database maintenance, and production of documents for publication. The student will be supervised by the program epidemiologist and will receive functional project guidance from the program epidemiologist, associate directors, data analyst, and research coordinator.
The below listed tasks, deliverables, and benchmarks are based on the current activity plans and timelines related to the existing studies, to which the GA would contribute. Additional tasks and deliverables may be adapted or added if the studies within these three countries or program needs change.
Analytical Data Tasks:
- Assist with cleaning data from program studies and impact surveys, and create output figures for analysis
- Respond to data needs of TCP staff including, but not limited to building datasets, performing descriptive and statistical analysis, and supporting production of manuscripts for submission to peer-reviewed journals
- Data entry and analysis of qualitative data and analysis of data from prevalence surveys and/or randomized feasibility trial
Research Development/Program Planning Tasks:
- Conduct programmatic research on TCP-assisted countries for possible program developments and in-country protocol setup
- Review study protocols and create maps with ArcGIS or R for publications and presentations
- Assist with documenting and updating standard operating procedures for managing and analyzing program data
- Assist with refining data management approaches including, but not limited to database structure and data storage, standard operating procedures for saving and updating the database, and data flow optimization
- Assist in the development of monitoring and evaluation protocols
Deliverables:
- In collaboration with team members, the graduate assistant will assist with the development of:
- Full analytic datasets from planned programmatic studies
- A report detailing the primary findings planned programmatic studies
Benchmarks:
- End of first semester, developed background scientific knowledge, have constructed relevant analytic datasets, and have detailed analytic plans
- End of second semester, report detailing primary findings of above studies including the support of presentations to be presented at the annual program review meeting
Minimum Qualifications:
- Currently studying in an accredited graduate-level program who has completed at least two semesters of academic coursework
- Knowledge of statistical analysis and use of statistical analysis software
- Familiarity with mHealth applications (Open Data Kit particularly)
- Previous experience or planned coursework involving mapping software such as ArcGIS or R
- Previous experience or planned coursework involving Stata, R, or SAS
- Capacity to comprehend design of studies and surveys as a conceptual basis for resulting database structureS
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in resource limited or low-income international settings and/or with global health projects
- Previous experience or displayed interest in informatics for public health applications
- Interest in Python scripting for ArcGIS
- Familiarity with database systems/SQL
Target Population Served:
By supporting work in the Carter Center’s Atlanta office, the students are ultimately supporting public health initiatives in three countries where The Carter Center supports the Ministries of Health in the fight against blinding trachoma: Ethiopia, Niger, and South Sudan.
Public Health Challenges/Issues Addressed:
The control and prevention of trachoma, using data to inform program planning and implementation.
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