Job Description

Established in 1805, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (the NYC Health Department) is the oldest and largest health department in the country. Our mission is to protect and improve the health of all New Yorkers, in service of a vision of a city in which all New Yorkers can realize their full health potential, regardless of who they are, how old they are, where they are from, or where they live.

As a world-renowned public health agency with a history of building transformative public health programming and infrastructure, innovating in science and scholarship to advance public health knowledge, and responding to urgent public health crises from New York City’s yellow fever outbreak in 1822, to the COVID-19 pandemic we are a hub for public health innovation, expertise, and programs, and services. We serve as the population health strategist, and policy, and planning authority for the City of New York, while also having a vast impact on national and international public policy, including programs and services focused on food and nutrition, anti-tobacco support, chronic disease prevention, HIV/AIDS treatment, family and child health, environmental health, mental health, and racial and social justice work, among others.

Our Agency’s five strategic priorities, building off a recently-completed strategic planning process emerging from the COVID-19 emergency, are:

1) To re-envision how the Health Department prepares for and responds to health emergencies, with a focus on building a “response-ready” organization, with faster decision-making, transparent public communications, and stronger surveillance and bridges to healthcare systems 2) Address and prevent chronic and diet-related disease, including addressing rising rates of childhood obesity and the impact of diabetes, and transforming our food systems to improve nutrition and enhance access to healthy foods

3) Address the second pandemic of mental illness including: reducing overdose deaths, strengthening our youth mental health systems, and supporting people with serious mental illness

4) Reduce black maternal mortality and make New York a model city for women’s health

5) Mobilize against and combat the health impacts of climate change

Our 7,000-plus team members bring extraordinary diversity to the work of public health. True to our value of equity as a foundational element of all of our work, and a critical foundation to achieving population health impact in New York City, the NYC Health Department has been a leader in recognizing and dismantling racism’s impacts on the health of New Yorkers and beyond. In 2021, the NYC Board of Health declared racism as a public health crisis. With commitment to advance anti-racist public health practices that dismantle systems that perpetuate inequitable power, opportunity and access, the NYC Health Department continues to work in and with communities and community organizations to increase their access to health services and decrease avoidable health outcomes.

PROGRAM AND JOB DESCRIPTION:

The mission of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) Bureau of Immunization (BOI) is to prevent the occurrence and transmission of diseases through immunization. BOI promotes immunization of children and adults through the tracking of individual immunization status and monitoring of immunization levels in the NYC population using the Citywide Immunization Registry (CIR). The CIR is a central record-keeping system established by the DOHMH and accessible to licensed health care providers, parents, and agencies authorized by the DOHMH for the purpose of ensuring that NYC children and adults are protected from vaccine-preventable diseases.

DUTIES WILL INCLUDE BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO:

• Working closely with CIR analysts to fulfill internal reporting requirements, respond to data requests, and complete grant-funded projects.

• Designing, planning and conducting data analysis to examine vaccination coverage levels among children, adolescents and adults by neighborhood and citywide.

• Developing methods to measure and improve immunization coverage rates among all strata of the NYC population.

• Assisting with the planning, development and implementation of protocols and research related to CIR data quality and vaccination coverage improvements.

• Coordinating research efforts using CIR data and assisting with research projects with other DOHMH programs, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), other IISs and outside agencies.

• Collaborating with computer consultants and other BOI staff to plan, test and implement enhancements to CIR's Immunization Calculation Engine (ICE) and record matching algorithm (ChoiceMaker).

• Assisting BOI senior leadership in developing indicators relating to vaccine uptake and CIR reporting by providers immunizing children, adolescents, and adults.

• Participating in national workgroups, conferences and meetings that address the challenges, best practices and latest advances in improving immunization data quality.

• Training and supervising other analysts.

• Preparing IRB applications, grant proposals and other funding requests.

• Developing reports for senior management and external stakeholders.

• Preparing reports and presentations for national and local conferences and meetings, and also manuscripts for peer-reviewed publication.

Qualifications

1. For Assignment Level I (only physical, biological and environmental sciences and public health) A master's degree from an accredited college or university with a specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological or environmental science or in public health.

To be appointed to Assignment Level II and above, candidates must have:

1. A doctorate degree from an accredited college or university with specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological, environmental or social science and one year of full-time experience in a responsible supervisory, administrative or research capacity in the appropriate field of specialization; or

2. A master's degree from an accredited college or university with specialization in an appropriate field of physical, biological, environmental or social science and three years of responsible full-time research experience in the appropriate field of specialization; or

3. Education and/or experience which is equivalent to "1" or "2" above. However, all candidates must have at least a master's degree in an appropriate field of specialization and at least two years of experience described in "2" above. Two years as a City Research Scientist Level I can be substituted for the experience required in "1" and "2" above.

NOTE:

Probationary Period

Appointments to this position are subject to a minimum probationary period of one year.

Additional Information

The City of New York is an inclusive equal opportunity employer committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and providing a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment based upon any legally protected status or protected characteristic, including but not limited to an individual's sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, gender identity, or pregnancy.