Study Supervisor, Vaccine Wastage - PATH

PATH is a global organization that works to accelerate health equity by bringing together public institutions, businesses, social enterprises, and investors to solve the world’s most pressing health challenges. With expertise in science, health, economics, technology, advocacy, and dozens of other specialties, PATH develops and scales solutions—including vaccines, drugs, devices, diagnostics, and innovative approaches to strengthening health systems worldwide. Learn more at www.path.org.

Vaccine wastage is a critical factor for those managing vaccine procurement to understand, in order to correctly quantify the amount of vaccine that is needed for purchase and hence reduce the risk of stockouts or overstocking. Vaccine wastage may be due to avoidable causes, such as exposure to inappropriate temperature or damage of vials during transport, or unavoidable causes, such as the number of children presenting for immunization being fewer than the number of doses in a multi-dose vial. Research shows that country-specific, vial-specific, and vaccine formulation-specific wastage rates data are very limited and that with more expensive vaccines entering the system and the availability of the multi-dose vial policy, health workers are taking a more complex approach that acknowledges the tradeoff between coverage and wastage and takes into account issues of immunization equity.

PATH is undertaking a mixed methods study in Ghana to better quantify closed and open-vial wastage rates for vaccines used in the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) as well as understand the major drivers behind the occurrence of wastage and their impact. The study includes collection of retrospective and 3-month prospective data on vaccine wastage and conducting interviews with EPI staff working at various level of the vaccine supply chain and service delivery level. The study will also contribute in establishing methodologies for estimating context-specific wastage rates. The study supervisor will lead and coordinate the data collection activities in Ghana for this study. This work will be done in collaboration and coordination with the Ghana EPI.

Specific Duties And Responsibilities

• Oversee all the data collection activities in Ghana for all components of the vaccine wastage study, to ensure proper execution as per the defined methodology and timely completion of the study.
• Supervise a team of data collectors who will conduct the data collection activities using the defined methodology and data collection tools.
• Coordinate with the EPI program and obtain permissions required to conduct the interviews. Communicate with EPI throughout the project and coordinate their activity inputs.
• Schedule and coordinate the data collection activities for the team of data collectors.
• Ensure timely start and completion of the data collection activities.
• Set up and execute study monitoring processes to ensure that high quality, complete and accurate data are being collected by each data collector. This includes reviewing the data collected and taking steps to correct any data quality issues.
• Be the first point of contact with the data collectors to address any challenges that arise.
• Conduct data collection activities at the central and regional vaccine storage facilities and central EPI administrative offices.
• During the 3-month period for the prospective data collection coordinate with the district vaccination officers to ensure closed and open-vial wastage data are being correctly and consistently reported by the staff at the health facilities and districts and obtain these data.Conduct study supervision visits to health facilities and districts that are not either incorrectly and / or inconsistently reporting these data and work with the district vaccination officers to take corrective measures and obtain the data

Required Skills

Required Experience

• Extensive knowledge of the Ghana health system.
• Experience with the immunization program.
• Demonstrated experience conducting qualitative and quantitative research studies focused on the health system, with preference for experience conducting studies related to the immunization program.
• Experience with conducting primary data collection.
• Experience in a supervision position and having served as a supervisor for primary data collection activities.
• Strong planning and project management skills.
• Excellent written and communication skills.
• Attention to detail and evidence of producing high quality work.