Center for Global Health

The Center for Global Health

To apply, submit a statement of interest and CV to Andie Yost at ayost@pennmedicine.upenn.edu. If your qualifications meet the required critieria, you will be contacted for an interview.

For additional information on each opportunity, please contact Erin Reagan.

Title: Nutrition Database Support Assistant

Location: Gabarone, Botswana

Summary: Dietetics Department at Center for Child and Adolescent Nutrition, and Princess Marina Hospital are seeking to organized paper records into a database for monitoring, evaluation, and future research. Volunteer will work with dietetics staff and under Maemo Lesiapeto, who studied Clinical Epidemiology at UPenn under Dr. Elizabeth Lowenthal. Dr. Lowenthal will provide remote support, and pre-travel support to the volunteer. Volunteer may be able to do research with Ms. Lesiapeto.

Eligibility: Strong interest in health and nutrition, desired experience with database development and data entry. Flexible and organized. Experience with REDCap, Excel, and Stata preferred. Online research training required to complete before travel.

Notes: Eligible to apply for Harvey M. Friedman Global Health Travel Award for travel expenses.

Title: Preventive Medicine Research Assistant

Location: Whiteriver, Arizona, USA

Summary: Whiteriver Service Unit is a 40-bed facility providing inpatient and outpatient services to 20,000 members of the White Mountain Apache Tribe in Northeast rural Arizona. The population has a high rate of diabetes, obesity, rheumatology, substance abuse, and infectious diseases. Dr. Ryan Close, the Preventive Medicine Officer, has several on-going projects including: the impact of invasive Group A Streptococcus, assessing the prevalence of GAS pharyngitis in children <3 years, and assessing effectiveness of injectable naltrexone on alcohol-use disorder. Volunteer would work directly with Dr. Close on projects most aligned with their interests, including joining on-going research, initiating new studies, or both. Volunteers interested in public health can join initiatives controlling outbreaks of syphilis and Hepatitis C or surveillance of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Eligibility: Strong interest in Global Health and/or working with under-served or marginalized populations and knowledge of Microsoft Excel and Word. Flexibility, enthusiasm, strong work ethic, and intrinsically motivated. Experience working in cross-cultural context recommended. Prior research experience helpful but not required.

Notes: On-site housing provided, meals provided by hospital cafeteria.

Title: Healthy Development Project Research Assistant

Location: Consuelo, Dominican Republic

Summary: Since 2009, CHOP has worked with leadership and clinicians in Consuelo, DR, to provide primary care and health education to poor children <5 years. This program (Niños Primeros en Salud) incorporates several key pillars, including nutrition, breastfeeding promotion, deworming, and immunization. Recent research focused on reading behaviors with parents in NPS, who reported they wanted to learn more about promoting their children’s healthy development. This follow-up project will collect quantitative information about early cognitive, motor, language, and social-emotional milestones from families to inform future interventions. Volunteers, two or three from Penn, will serve as research assistants, helping with data collection, study coordination, patient enrollment, and interviews.

Eligibility: MUST be fluent in Spanish. Must be comfortable speaking with parents in the DR about components of their child’s development, and be able to live and work in the DR for a minimum of 6 weeks. Experience working/living in low-resourced and cross-cultural settings, experience administering psychological instruments, interest in working with young children and families, familarity in data entry and management software such as REDcap desired. Also desired but not required: fluency in Haitian Creole.

Notes: The CHOP Global Health Center will fund the volunteer’s on-site housing.

Title: Charts Auditors and Data Recorder

Location: Consuelo, Dominican Republic

Summary: Same program as above. Over the past two summers, two volunteers each year have performed an audit of medical charts in the NPS program. Info collected has been used to set and track progress toward program goals. We need two more student auditors to review NPS patient charts to collect and compile info related to the program’s key pillars, analyze trends, and think critically about how to improve data collection and patient records in the future to better track info about the pillars. Volunteer will be encouraged to participate as a co-author to present findings from this project in a poster presentation at CHOP’s annual Global Health conference. Authorship role depends on volunteer’s abilities: 1st-authorship is a possibility.

Eligibility: MUST be fluent in Spanish. Must be able to live/work in the DR for 6-8 weeks. Must have some familiarity with data entry and data management using software such as REDCap, Excel, Access, Stata, etc. Experience living/working in low-resourced and cross-cultural settings desired

Notes: The CHOP Global Health Center will fund the volunteer’s on-site housing.

Title: Assistant Data Coordinator/Data QC Assistant

Location: Lusaka, Zambia

Summary: Person-centered Public Health for HIV Treatment in Zambia (PCPH) seeks to develop a measurement approach based on SMS surveys, exit interviews, and interventions among a random sample of lost patients — a public health patient experience measurement system. This will accurately capture the patient experience and will be built with the intention for widespread use at scale in Zambia and beyond. The study will also evaluate systematic use of facility-level performance and patient experience info on effectiveness and efficiency through a stepped wedge trial. It will assess implementation experience, costs, projected cost-effectiveness, and impact of scaling-up patient centered care in Zambia.

Eligibility: Candidate should have degree in information management, computer science, or related field, as well as experience with Microsoft Access or other relationship databases. Should also have experience with either NVIVO, STATA, MYSQL, or other qualitative analysis software, and experience with any programming language. Should also have experience in conducting trainings and data quality control processes, have strong analytical and problem solving skills, the ability to work with minimal supervision and ability to meet tight deadlines.

Title: Oncology Research Assistant

Location: Rwanda or Botswana

Summary: Research Assistants will work within cancer programs in either Rwanda, at Butaro Hospital, or Botswana, at Princess Marina Hospital. RAs will be embedded within the oncology team and have 1-3 projects to focus on. Projects are often centered around analyses of patients with a particular disease and related treatment aspects, gaps in care, and ultimate outcomes. RAs will have an on-site mentor, plus remote mentoring by US oncologists. These projects have usually resulted in presentations at international meetings, as well as publications.

Eligibility: Should have very basic understanding of disease processes, without specific knowledge of oncology. RAs will need to repeat and learn about the diseases they are studying. They will need to be meticulous in data accrual and entry into a database, and will have mentoring in this regard. RAs are not required to independently analyze data via statistical programs, though if they know how they may be able to do this on their own.

Notes: Work in Botswana is eligible to apply for funding from the Harvey M. Friedman Global Health Travel Award for travel expenses.

Title: Baseline Data Collection Tool Developer, Food and Nutrition Program

Location: Gbarnga City, Liberia

Summary: B4 Youth Theatre offers a free summer arts-intensive program to students, but there are often difficulties making sure students come with food. As we consider beginning a food and nutrition program, we must collect data on how many students are bringing food, what sort of food they can bring, whether they ate breakfast, if they live near enough to have lunch at home over the lunch break, etc. The data will be used in community meetings with parents to devise a plan for the health of our students while they’re involved in physical activity and may later include writing grants for food assistance for the students.

Eligibility: We require a strong interest in qualitative and survey research and experience working in low-resourced and cross-cultural settings. A desire to work with children and youth is desired, and familiarity with Liberian English or local Liberian language Kpelle is preferred (though not required by any means).

Notes: Host-country peer mentors and housing and meals with families of students are available at a reasonable charge.