Epidemiologist - Public Health

Hiring range: $63,080.00 - $82,792.50. This is an exempt (salaried) position. Pay rates are based on education, skill, experience level, and internal equity.

About Us

At Mecklenburg County, you’ll have the chance to build a career as unique as you are with support, inclusive culture, and technology to become the best version of you. We’re counting on YOUR unique voice and perspective to help Mecklenburg County Public Health become even better, too. Join us and build an exceptional experience for yourself, and a healthier world for all.

As a member of the Mecklenburg County Public Health team, you will become a subject matter expert in the public health field. The CDC foundation explains that “Public health is the science of protecting and improving the health of people and their communities. This work is achieved by promoting health lifestyles, researching disease and injury prevention, detecting, preventing, and responding to infectious disease”. Come be a part of Mecklenburg County’s Public Health department’s vision to “assure the health and safety of our diverse and changing community today and for future generations.”

This role is on-site 5 days a week, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. It is a grant-funded position, funded by the CDC “Overdose Data to Action: Local” federal grant. The grant performance period is September 1, 2023 - August 31, 2028 with potential to extend based on available funding.

About the Role

Gathers data that describes and tracks the community’s experience with drug overdose morbidity and mortality and provides interpretation and illustration of that data within the department, the county, and to the community through presentation and reporting. Oversees professional, epidemiological, and investigative work by assisting in the design, conduct, and analysis of epidemiological investigations for disease surveillance or special studies.

Responsibilities

• Monitor, report, and present on the incidence and prevalence of drug overdose events in the county, risk factors, and other adverse health outcomes.
• Perform epidemiological and statistical analyses on a variety of data with a focus on community health indicators and prepare results for review in the form of presentations and reports.
• Disseminate results of surveillance, analyses of health outcome data, investigations, and special requests in the form of presentations and reports, in language suitable for the target audience.
• Provide data and information concerning service delivery, and propose practices or policies based on findings that will preserve or promote public health.
• Provide epidemiological analysis or interpretation of data and information for persons having responsibility for program or policy.
• Consult with department program staff by advising on data methodology and available data resources.
• Participate in drug overdose outbreak investigations as needed.
• Respond in cases of urgent and/or emergent events that require public health interventions. Employees may be trained for and assigned duties unrelated to their regular work; work outside normal business hours and workdays and/or in a different work location may be required. Emergency events include, but are not limited to, communicable disease outbreaks, severe weather situations (e.g., snow or ice storms, tornados, hurricanes), natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes), fire, or power outages, and acts of terrorism.

Requirements

• Minimum of two years of experience in a related field.
• Master's degree in public health (MPH, MSPH) Epidemiology or related public health or life science field. A combination of relevant education and relevant experience is accepted.
• Requires a valid North Carolina or South Carolina Driver's License.
• Requires County Driving Privileges.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with state or local government public health epidemiology program.

Skills

• Knowledge of Epidemiology methods, especially descriptive and applied epidemiology related to communicable, chronic or environmentally induced diseases, maternal child health, or injury control.
• Public health data, databases, and related information sources; public health surveillance systems.
• Data analysis, data collection, questionnaire design.
• Data visualization and packaging for decision making and target audience understanding.
• Best practices for presentation of and reporting on data.
• General nature and objectives of statewide public health programs.
• The organization and operation of federal, state, and local governmental agencies relating to public health.

• Preparing and delivering on request and in a timely manner a variety of written, graphic, or oral presentations, reports, and documentation related to public health.
• Using a computer and related software applications for data analysis and preparing written, graphic, or oral presentations and reports of the findings in language appropriate for the target audience.
• Incorporating data from a variety of sources to create an overview of a community health issue for presentation and report.
• Conducting literature reviews and environmental scans.
• Managing data, extracting data, building databases, scrubbing data, merging data sets.
• Prioritizing work.
• Assessing consumer needs.
• Providing customer service.

• Applied Learning: Assimilating and applying new job-related information in a timely manner.
• Independence: Working effectively guided by high-level instructions and minimal supervision.
• Collaboration: Working effectively and cooperatively with others; establishing and maintaining good working relationships.
• Communication: Clearly conveying information and ideas through a variety of media to individuals or groups in a manner that engages the audience and helps them understand and retain the information provided.

Computer Skills

• Proficient use of a variety of computer applications including Microsoft Office Suite, especially Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, as well as an additional statistical and data analysis application (SAS, Stata, SPSS, R, EpiInfo, etc).

Reasonable Accommodations

To accomplish this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform, with or without reasonable accommodation, each essential function satisfactorily. Reasonable accommodations may be made to help enable qualified individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.