Epidemiological Analyst

The United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is a system leader for health security; taking action internationally to strengthen global health security, providing trusted advice to government and the public and reducing inequalities in the way different communities experience and are impacted by infectious disease, environmental hazards, and other threats to health.

UKHSA’s remit, as an agency with a global-to-local reach, is to protect the health of the nation from infectious diseases and other external threats to health. As the nation’s expert national health security agency UKHSA will:

Prevent: anticipate threats to health and help build the nation’s readiness, defences and health security
Detect: use cutting edge environmental and biological surveillance to proactively detect and monitor infectious diseases and threats to health
Analyse: use world-class science and data analytics to assess and continually monitor threats to health, identifying how best to control and mitigate the risks
Respond: take rapid, collaborative and effective actions nationally and locally to mitigate threats to health when they materialise
Lead: lead strong and sustainable global, national, regional and local partnerships designed to save lives, protect the nation from public health threats and reduce inequalities.

Job overview
This is a surveillance role within Immunisation and VPDs Division with a focus on Invasive Pneumococcal Disease and Haemophilus Influenzae.

The Immunisation Division is responsible for the national surveillance of most vaccine preventable infections and in providing technical support and clinical expertise to the Department of Health and Social Care and to the NHS in planning and delivering the national immunisation programmes.

The department evaluates the programmes by generating high quality data on disease incidence, vaccine coverage, age-specific immunity, and vaccine effectiveness. Surveillance of vaccine preventable diseases and vaccine coverage data are vital components of the evaluation of vaccination programmes in the UK. These data inform the understanding of the epidemiology of different infections and the public health impact of vaccination programmes and help develop and improve control strategies. The department provides secretariat to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation who would recommend any changes to the national programme. The department also oversees the national distribution and clinical use of immunoglobulins and supports or leads outbreak investigations.

UKHSA Colindale, 61 Colindale Ave, London NW9 5EQ (2/3 days hybrid working available, subject to approval from line manager and business needs.)

Please be aware that this role can only be worked from within the UK and not overseas. Relocation expenses are not available.

Main duties of the job
Maintain, develop and document enhanced surveillance systems including databases
Create and update queries and data validation checks for the removal of duplicate records, data formatting and ensuring completeness of data.
Liaise with stakeholder staff providing surveillance data
Liaise with clinicians, laboratories and HPTs regarding individual cases and outbreaks
Develop, update and maintain appropriate pages on the UKHSA website in a timely manner.
Run regular queries on a wide range of databases to prepare surveillance reports for Health Protection Report as appropriate.
To assist the Information Officer with the preparation of appropriate annual data sets for international organisations e.g. World Health Organisation (WHO) and European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC)
Maintain appropriate disease specific Reference Manager databases in liaison with departmental scientific and medical staff
Contribute to papers for scientific journals and reports for the Department of Health and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation upon request
Present surveillance data and study results at in-house and national meetings/conferences, and attend national meetings/conferences as appropriate
Provide database and website support for other infectious disease surveillance projects
The duties/responsibilities listed above describe the post as it is at present and is not intended to be exhaustive.