Digital Tools Consultant

Vital Strategies, headquartered in New York City, is an international public health organization. Our programs strengthen public health systems and address the world’s leading causes of illness, injury and death. We currently work in 73 countries, supporting data-driven decision making in government, advancing evidence-based public health policies and mounting strategic communication campaigns. Vital Strategies’ priorities are driven by the greatest potential to improve and save lives. They include non-communicable disease prevention, cardiovascular health promotion, tobacco control, road safety, obesity prevention, epidemic prevention, overdose prevention, environmental health, vital statistics systems building and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment research. Our programs are primarily concentrated in low- and middle-income countries in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific; the Overdose Prevention Program is our first initiative in the U.S. Please visit our website at www.vitalstrategies.org to find out more about our work.

Vital Strategies offers highly competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits. Vital welcomes and supports a diverse, inclusive work environment. As such, our commitment is to promote equal employment opportunities (EEO) for all applicants seeking employment.

The Consultancy

This consultancy will support Vital Strategies’ Data Impact Program www.vitalstratgies.org/programs/data-impact/. This program, part of the Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative, collaborates with governments to expand the use of data to enhance public health policymaking. A key area of technical assistance offered through the program is the development of digital tools, such as dashboards and data portals, that make critical data sources more visual, more interactive, and more accessible to public health decision-makers and stakeholders.

The consultant will support digital tool projects in health ministries in selected Data for Health locations, with a particular focus on those in Asian countries. The consultant work will focus on (a) developing resources illustrating general best practices in digital tool design that ministry solution developers can reference; (b) suggesting improvements in the design of specific digital tools that ministry developers are creating; and (c) designing initial versions of specific digital tools that will be transferred to country ministries for maintenance/improvement.

Deliverables

The consultant will be responsible for producing the following deliverables:

Mock-ups of general best practices for different types of digital tools

Main responsibilities

• Catalog examples of effective design for specified types of public health digital tools

• Annotate examples to identify elements that reflect best design practices

• Create mock-ups for specified types of public health digital tools

Recommendations for improving design of tools being developed by country health ministries

Main responsibilities

• Review preliminary versions of digital tools that country health ministries have developed

• Recommend improvements based on general principles of effective visualization

• Recommend options to leverage the specific features of the platform being used (such as Tableau and Power BI) more efficiently

• Consult with ministry developers on how to execute recommended changes

Initial versions of digital tools to be transferred to country health ministry for maintenance and improvement

Main responsibilities

• Define key parameters to guide tool design

o Engage stakeholders to identify primary use cases

o Engage data source experts to describe country-specific data sources

o Engage technical staff to understanding IT environment and requirements

• Develop static mockups to illustrate the use cases
• Define optimal data structures and data preparation guidelines (including table shells and indicator definitions)
• Iteratively design working prototypes of digital tool
• After user acceptance, collaborate with ministry developers to deploy initial version of tool
• Train and provide resources to transfer ongoing responsibility for tool maintenance and improvement to local developers

*Phase 2 of the project (Jan-March 2021) will have similar deliverables based on the outcomes of Phase 1 which extend through December 2020.

Consultant background must include:

• Experience developing dashboards with Tableau and/or Power BI

o Advanced knowledge of Tableau and Power BI preferred.

o Experience with other off-the-shelf platforms preferred

• Portfolio of quality digital tools using Tableau and/or Power BI

• Basic knowledge of public health indicators

• Experience engaging and working remotely with government stakeholders

Qualities and Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required.

• Master’s degree preferred in public health, epidemiology, public policy, or other health-related field (Current student or recent graduate welcome)

• Experience developing dashboards with Tableau and/or Power BI

o Advanced knowledge of Tableau and Power BI preferred.

o Experience with other off-the-shelf platforms preferred

• Basic knowledge of public health indicators. Experience using public health data to create dashboards or other digital tools, preferred.

• Experience engaging and working remotely with government stakeholders