Spatial Data Analyst

Position Summary:

The Spatial Data Analyst will serve as a technical expert within the program, informing the selection, management, manipulation, analysis, and communication of spatial data and its relation to health. Working collaboratively with other members of the Data & Analytics team, this position will contribute significantly to the annual production of the County Health Rankings and continued development of data content in both static and interactive presentation. Our team values collaboration, leadership, innovation, growth, and each other.

Position Duties:

• 20% Contribute creativity and expertise to the development of tools that improve the ways communities can use County Health Rankings and What Works for Health to visualize data, assess the health of their communities, set priorities, choose strategies, measure progress, and communicate findings with key stakeholders.
• 20% Support production of the County Health Rankings; including literature reviews, identification and evaluation of potential datasets, data analysis, and documentation.
• 10% Serve as a subject matter expert and liaison to key internal and external stakeholders regarding spatial analytics best practices and methodologies.
• 10% Play a key role in the development, research, design, and production of both static and interactive data products.
• 10% Perform data cleaning and quality assurance, transformations, restructuring, and integrations of multiple data sources as necessary to prepare data for analyses.
• 10% Improve efficiency through the creation of reproducible and automated workflows for data preparation and analysis.
• 10% Perform data analyses, sometimes under short timelines, for internal exploration, signature products, media requests, and other partner needs.
• 5% Contribute to the development of team strategies, procedures, and analysis methodologies and recommend improvements to leadership.
• 5% Support engagement, outreach, and response to media and local communities regarding questions or requests for data.

Degree & Area of Specialization:

Master’s degree required. Doctoral degree or relevant certifications preferred. Applications from statistics, geography, urban planning, economics, policy, social or health sciences fields are encouraged.

Experience:

• Expertise in the use of statistical and spatial analysis software (e.g. SAS or R, and ArcGIS). Skilled in technical design, implementation, and interpretation of spatial analyses.
• Ability to identify data needs, and experience curating data from a variety of sources, assessing limitations and data quality, to manage, aggregate, and document for a particular use.
• Ability to visualize population data with excellence, creativity, and thoughtfulness to support clear, audience-appropriate messaging toward equity in population outcomes (including tools such as mapping and data interactives to tell stories and communicate trends and context).
• Awareness of, and desire to increase understanding of societal, structural, and historical influences on individual and community abilities to achieve optimal health; and strategies to achieve equity.
• Dedication to continued learning of best practices for data visualizations, to generate data products (including maps) suitable for publication or web communications, remaining respectful of the populations represented.
• Demonstrated project management and product development, including attention to detail with respect to data accuracy and limitations.
• Desire to operate professionally and collegially within a creative, fast-paced environment that emphasizes teamwork, integrity, and excellence.

Additional Preferred Strengths:

• Strength in critical thinking to identify, analyze, and visualize health inequities and their connections to place and social structures.
• Experience manipulating and analyzing a variety of datasets including, national mortality, community health, health indicators and outcomes, as well as non-traditional data sources such as (grassroots reporting/social media mining).
• Ability to establish and communicate data management best practices to maintain data quality and support efficient and sustainable analytic work individually and across team members.
• Experience collaborating on data products, including work in partnership with communication experts to optimize visualizations.
• Familiarity with applied population health and epidemiological research methods.
• Experience partnering with and centering the voices of marginalized populations to grow community power through data presentation and communications.