The Clinton Health Access Initiative, Inc. (CHAI) is a global health organization committed to saving lives and reducing the burden of disease in low-and middle-income countries, while strengthening the capabilities of governments and the private sector in those countries to create and sustain high-quality health systems that can succeed without our assistance. For more information, please visit: http://www.clintonhealthaccess.org

CHAI, in partnership with its India affiliate William J Clinton Foundation (WJCF), works in close partnership with and under the guidance of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) at the Central and States' levels on an array of high priority initiatives aimed at improving health outcomes. Currently, CHAI supports government partners across projects to expand access to quality care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, tuberculosis, COVID-19, common cancers, sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, immunization, essential medicines, anaemia, nutrition, access to safe drinking water, surveillance, and health financing .

Public Health Surveillance

The Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) envisions strengthening the world’s ability to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats by leveraging and complementing the strengths and resources of multisectoral and multilateral partners to address gaps and improve country capacity and leadership to ensure readiness of health systems. While significant progress has been made in advancing the GHSA, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has taken millions of lives and upended economic, social, and health routines , has revealed global failure to invest in pandemic preparedness. Therefore, it is critical for global and national leaders to consider strategies to build resilience to such crises, especially mechanisms for coordinated, well-planned responses. Studies, such as the one by the Brookings Institute on lessons from Nigeria’s COVID-19 response[1], underscore the importance of effective coordination of a multiplicity of well-functioning blocks - surveillance systems, public health laboratories, public health workforce development, public health research, disease prevention and health promotion, emergency preparedness and response - for building resilient health systems which can withstand pandemics.

In India, traditional public health disease surveillance systems have hitherto been fragmented, siloed, and limited to few diseases. Multiple disease-specific programmes and stand-alone platforms have developed their own surveillance systems, including labs, sentionel sites, and active and passive data collection mechanisms, with varying degrees of surveillance system sensitivity. In 2004, the Government of India (GoI) launched the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) with World Bank’s assistance to rapidly detect disease outbreaks. IDSP’s structure has now been scaled up to all districts in India and integrated with systems under the National Centre for Disease Control.  India occupies the overall 57th position from among the 195 countries that were assessed across the components of prevent, detect, respond, health, norms, and risk in the 2019 Global Health Security Index[2] . While the country’s health system fared well in its ability to respond to pandemics, it ranked lower across the remaining five dimensions of prevention, health systems, compliance, risk environment. Significant efforts have been promulgated and implemented by the national and state governments since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic for strengthening various components of India’s Public Health Surveillance (PHS).

In collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), CHAI has embarked on a project to help the focus state governments of Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar (BH) develop their respective roadmaps as exemplars for further improving and making more resilient the PHS systems in the states. Under the guidance of the state governments, CHAI will develop multi-year strategies for strengthening the performance of sub-components of PHS systems such as policy; governance; research, data, and decision making; human resources; lab and infrastructure; supply chains; and financing. In turn, these state-led improvements will help the PHS systems better collect, analyse, and communicate data and findings and trigger appropriate preventive, diagnostic, and treatment actions through existing health programmes and systems in the two focus states. On the back of the highest level of political will and concomitant investments in health systems, both UP and BH have demonstrated remarkable gains in maternal and child health indicators over the last few years and moved with agility for managing the COVID-19 pandemic. The PHS roadmaps will leverage this zeal and these efforts for implementation of PHS system improvements in the states.

Role

We are seeking a highly motivated individual with proven research and policy building capabilities, communication skills, academic credentials, and a professional track record of delivering results, for the volunteer role as part the PHS project. The successful candidate will adhere to the core CHAI values of resourcefulness, entrepreneurialism, flexibility, independence, humility, and work ethic. The role will report in to the project manager and be of a short tenure.

[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2020/07/02/how-well-has-nigeria-responded-to-covid-19/#cancel Last accessed on 11^th of August 2021

[2] https://www.ghsindex.org/report-model/ Last accessed on 11^th of August 2021

• Design and conduct secondary and primary research for assessing Public Health Surveillance (PHS) systems, including through field visits to various locations in UP and Bihar
• Analyze and synthesize all research findings – qualitative and quantitative – to identify key strategic challenges and to create solutions across PHS system components
• Support project team in assessment of policy, legal, and political economy enablers for PHS in UP and BH with specific action areas for improvement
• Lead report writing and presentations highlighting and summarizing findings and recommendations on public health surveillance systems
• Work with teams to interpret and communicate results of the analyses to relevant stakeholders, including donors, partners, and government officials
• Prepare notes and reports such as meeting and workshop proceedings, progress reports etc. on various activities related to the project

• Recently graduated or currently enrolled students in advanced degree programs (MD/MPH/PhD/MSc etc.) in public health, community medicine, epidemiology, diagnostics, clinical laboratory sciences etc.
• Experience of working on public health surveillance systems strongly preferred
• Demonstrated academic publishing experience strongly preferred
• Experience in designing and conducting studies in medicine/ public health/ sociological studies strongly preferred
• Experience in development sector organizations preferred
• Proficiency in using MS Office, Excel, and PowerPoint is required
• Proficiency in English and Hindi required

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