Post-doctoral Health Economist (JDHAN_0224_001)

Job Description

Group

Research

Location

This post is based in Ha Noi, with some travel required.

Hours of work

37.5 hours per week, extra hours may be required.

Tenure

Initially for 01 year, including a 02 month probation period, with possibility of extension.

Reporting to

Director of OUCRU Ha Noi

Vacancy reference

JDHAN_0224_001

Background

The Oxford University Clinical Research Unit (OUCRU) is a large-scale clinical and public health research unit, with sites offices in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in Vietnam, Jakarta in Indonesia and Kathmandu in Nepal. In Vietnam, we are hosted by the Hospital of Tropical Diseases (HTD) in Ho Chi Minh City, and the National Hospital for Tropical Diseases (NHTD) in Hanoi. OUCRU Nepal has partnerships with the Patan Academy of Health Sciences and Patan Hospital, and OUCRU Indonesia exists in partnership with the University of Indonesia. As a Wellcome Trust Africa Asia Programme, we have received considerable support from the Wellcome Trust since our establishment in 1991.

OUCRU’s vision is to have local, regional and global impact on health by leading a locally driven research programme on infectious diseases in Southeast Asia. Priority is given to health issues important to the hospitals where we work, and to the countries as a whole where we operate: Vietnam, Indonesia and Nepal. All work is intended not only to benefit the patients seen daily at our host hospitals, but also to help improve patient care.

OUCRU employs approximately 320 people across Viet Nam and has an average annual budget of USD 12mil.

Please see more information on OUCRU website: www.oucru.org

Job summary

We are seeking an experienced, self-motivated, analytically-minded post-doctoral Health Economist to join OUCRU in Ha Noi. They would be expected to help build OUCRU’s health economics capacity and develop their own research and career. They will join OUCRU Hanoi – where much of the work is on Antimicrobial Resistance, including with national level stakeholders - and work with the principal investigators there, but will also be expected to work with the groups in Ho Chi Minh city on health economics aspects of the research conducted there, especially clinical and community trials. They will engage strongly with Vietnamese policymakers and stakeholders to support their role and OUCRU’s mission.

Randomised controlled trials of interventions to improve the diagnosis and treatment of infectious disease are central to OUCRU’s scientific and public health mission. We need to be able to determine whether such interventions are cost-effective.

Another major research focus at OUCRU includes laboratory and epidemiological studies on infectious disease. Much of the epidemiological research is translatable into public health policy in the form of vaccination timing, treatment deployment, or prevention measures. Health economic analyses of these public health policies are critical for adoption, roll-out, and improvement at the national scale.

The post-holder would be expected to lead or contribute to these analyses.

Health economics was established in the OUCRU programme only 6 years ago, but there is currently no in-house health economist. Therefore, an important component of the post will be to help re-establish health economics within OUCRU and, in particular, to rebuild in-house capacity to design and perform health economic analyses linked to our research.

In addition to the activities describe above, the postholder will be expected to establish their own research programme. They will be eligible to apply for core funds to support the development of their research and career and expected to apply for external funding sources to increase their research capacity and outcomes.

Leadership training and career development support will be available to the post-holder through OUCRU’s existing and bespoke personal development programme.