Public Health Informatician

SH-1041 Public Health Informatic Epidemiologist

Position Overview:

The Public Health Informatic Epidemiologist supports the County Health Department in transforming authorized data, surveillance platforms, and related information systems into secure, accurate, and usable information for dashboards, reporting, and program decisions. This position connects program leadership, technology teams, system owners, analysts, and dashboard developers to ensure smooth data integration and reporting. The Informatician assesses feasibility, supports approved data workflows, establishes validation and governance standards, and prepares reliable datasets for Power BI and other reporting platforms. Early responsibilities include evaluating front-end and sandbox workflows for provisional overdose fatality surveillance. The ideal candidate can navigate and compare multiple data platforms, identify their strengths and limitations, including data quality issues, and extract structured data to support dashboard development.

Key Responsibilities

• Assess the feasibility, dependencies, limitations, and risks related to surveillance and other public health data systems.
• Review front-end and sandbox workflows and recommend practical methods for extracting, validating, and reporting authorized data.
• Identify and evaluate relevant reports, interfaces, repositories, exports, fields, user guidance, and related data sources across public health surveillance systems.
• Develop secure, reproducible processes for extracting, comparing, integrating, and preparing authorized data, including CSV exports from vendor-hosted systems.
• Establish validation procedures for completeness, accuracy, consistency, timeliness, missingness, duplication, case overlap, and alignment with source-system totals.
• Develop and maintain data dictionaries, metadata, data lineage, variable definitions, transformation rules, and change documentation.
• Support appropriate data ownership, access, retention, confidentiality, and authorized use practices.
• Develop standard operating procedures, technical workflows, data dictionaries, validation records, and maintenance documentation.
• Maintain organized documentation of navigation paths, field definitions, extraction logic, validation results, and recommended workflows.
• Provide technical assistance and training to authorized staff on data definitions, reporting workflows, data quality, and system limitations.
• Communicate technical findings, risks, and recommendations clearly to both technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
• Coordinate with the existing Health Department analytics team to maintain consistent validation, governance, documentation, and reporting practices.
• Complete other tasks as assigned by the supervisor.

Qualifications & Requirements

• Education:

Bachelor's degree in public health informatics, Health Informatics, Health Information Management, Information Systems, Computer Science, Data Science, Public Health Epidemiology or Biostatistics, or a related field required. Master's degree in public health informatics, Health Informatics, Public Health, Information Systems, or a related discipline preferred.

• Experience:

Minimum five years of experience working with public health, healthcare, clinical, surveillance, or other health information system data required. Demonstrated experience navigating health information systems and comparing or validating structured data and qualitative clinical or case information required. Demonstrated experience in data abstraction, harmonization, and aggregation needed for case review required. Experience exporting, cleaning, comparing, and validating CSV data using Excel and at least one analytical tool such as R, SAS, Python, or comparable software required. Experience summarizing data and data quality using appropriate statistical methodology required. Five years minimum experience with public health surveillance, substance use, overdose, injury, mortality, or other population-health programs preferred. Experience with substance use data, SUDORS, NVDRS, medical examiner or coroner records, toxicology findings, death certificate data, or comparable mortality-surveillance systems preferred. Experience reviewing structured fields and qualitative clinical, forensic, or case notes to identify and classify surveillance cases preferred. Experience comparing data workflows and translating findings into practical recommendations preferred. Experience navigating web-based health information systems and configuring data exports preferred. Experience developing automated surveillance, front-end and Sandbox data-to-dashboard, or recurring reporting workflows preferred. Familiarity with medical and public health case terminology preferred.

• Skills:

Strong analytic skills with experience working with quantitative and qualitative data. Expertise in public health informatics. Proficiency in evaluating health information systems and workflows. Experience with surveillance data abstraction, quality assessment, and validation. Knowledge of data governance, privacy standards, and secure data practices. Ability to enable dashboard development and reporting. Skill in producing clear, comprehensive technical documentation. Effective communication, coordination, critical thinking, attention to detail, and organizational skills.

Core Competencies

• Strong analytic skills with experience working with quantitative and qualitative data
• Expertise in public health informatics
• Proficiency in evaluating health information systems and workflows
• Experience with surveillance data abstraction, quality assessment, and validation
• Knowledge of data governance, privacy standards, and secure data practices
• Ability to enable dashboard development and reporting
• Skill in producing clear, comprehensive technical documentation
• Effective communication, coordination, critical thinking, attention to detail, and organizational skills
• Effective collaboration with program leadership, technology teams, system owners, analysts, and dashboard developers
• Proactive approach to maintaining secure, accurate, and usable public health data
• Trusted liaison across health department programs, technical teams, and authorized data users
• Creative adaptation of reporting and validation approaches based on program needs and system limitations
• Commitment to quality improvement and ongoing professional development

Working Conditions

• Work primarily in an office or remote environment with extended periods of computer use.
• Collaborate regularly with program leadership, technology teams, system owners, analysts, and dashboard developers.
• Navigate multiple health information systems, web-based platforms, and data export tools daily.
• Prepare for the possibility of shifting priorities, data availability constraints, and time-sensitive reporting requests.
• Communicate and interact with technical and nontechnical stakeholders on a daily basis.

Physical Requirements:

Must be able to lift and carry up to 15 pounds. Position requires standing less than 33% of time on duty, walking less than 33% of time on duty, and sitting between 33% and 66% of time on duty. Use of hands to finger, handle, or feel over 66% of time on duty. Reaching with hands or arms less than 33% of time. Full ability to talk and hear. Correctable vision required.

• Syra Health Corp is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, age, veteran disability or genetic information or any other reason prohibited by law in employment.*