Health Services Research Specialist

About the role

This position is part of the Health Services Research Center in the Larner College of Medicine Dean’s Office and will report to the Director of the Center. This position will organize, manage, conduct, and disseminate applied rural health, health services, health policy, and population health research under the scientific direction of a principal investigator. Independently manage small to medium projects or defined components of larger studies with general supervision.

Responsibilities

• Organize, manage, and conduct applied rural health, health services, health policy, and population health research under the scientific direction of a principal investigator.
• Contribute to the development and refinement of research questions, hypotheses, methods, protocols, measures, data specifications, and analytic plans.
• Conduct literature and policy reviews and perform quantitative data management and analysis using SAS, R, or Stata.
• Interpret findings within their rural health and policy context and serve as an author or substantive contributor to reports, policy briefs, conference presentations, manuscripts, grant proposals, and other research products.
• Collaborate with faculty, staff, students, funders, government agencies, health care organizations, and community partners to coordinate project activities.
• Exercise professional and methodological judgment within assigned responsibilities and consult the principal investigator on complex scientific, methodological, or programmatic issues.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in public health, public policy, health services research, health policy, epidemiology, social science, evaluation, or a related field and two to four years of relevant research or evaluation experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Experience planning, coordinating, and implementing applied research or evaluation studies, including development of research questions, protocols, work plans, data collection or analytic methods, and deliverables.
• Experience managing and analyzing quantitative data using SAS, R, Stata, or comparable statistical software.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently with general supervision, set objectives, determine project steps, manage multiple priorities, and meet deadlines.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze project problems, recommend adjustments to research processes, and understand the relationship of assigned work to broader project goals.
• Strong writing skills, including experience translating research findings for reports, proposals, policy briefs, presentations, or manuscripts.
• Demonstrated knowledge of rural health policy, rural health systems, and the health care access challenges facing rural populations.
• Effective oral and interpersonal communication skills and demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with internal and external partners.

Qualifications

• Experience conducting applied rural health or health policy research.
• Experience with complex survey or other secondary health data and statistical packages such as SAS, Stata, R, SUDAAN, SQL, or comparable software.
• Experience with qualitative research, mixed methods, community-engaged research, or program evaluation.
• Experience contributing to grant or contract proposals, budgets, IRB submissions, and sponsor reports.
• Experience preparing policy briefs, conference presentations, or manuscripts for peer-reviewed publication.