Forecasting Specialist at Clinton Health Access Initiative

Location: Boston, MA, USA
Last Date: July 14, 2010

The Center for Strategic Health Operations Research (CSHOR) of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) is seeking a highly motivated individual with strong analytical skills to devise forecasts of demand for key global health commodities. CSHOR works to improve the delivery of healthcare and strengthen health systems by applying rigorous quantitative approaches from a variety of fields including epidemiology, economics, and statistics. Working closely with CHAI’s other global and country teams and partner governments, we address challenges faced in many resource-limited settings such as the scarcity of human resources, lack of availability and distribution of drugs and commodities, and need for decision-making grounded in hard data. We have, for example, played a critical role in driving the price of key medicines down by accurately forecasting global demand for antiretrovirals for HIV treatment and ACTs for malaria treatment and provided countries with the underlying analysis necessary to make policy changes to optimize the availability of health care workers.


CSHOR is seeking a Forecasting Specialist to quantify demand for key global health commodities, particularly including drugs for malaria and HIV.

Responsibilities:

* Designing and implementing new methodologies for forecasting global demand of commodities despite challenging data uncertainties
* Producing regular forecasts with CHAI’s Drug Access Team for dissemination to suppliers and the global health community
* Providing guidance and building tools to help improve the ability of countries to forecast commodity requirements and avoid stock-outs
* Improving transparency surrounding commodity markets by helping to collate information on funding sources and procurement plans from national and international sources
* Synthesizing results and communicating them internally and externally at international venues
* Disseminating findings through high-quality presentations, reports, and publications

The candidate must have:

* Superb problem-solving skills and analytical capabilities
* Ability to apply a variety of quantitative approaches to solve complex problems despite unreliable data
* Enthusiasm to work independently and to adapt to new environments and challenges
* Excellent written and oral communication skills

The candidate should also possess at least two of the following:

* Experience in producing reliable commodity forecasts
* Familiarity with global health, particularly the delivery of malaria and/or HIV care and treatment
* An advanced degree in epidemiology, economics, operations research, or another quantitative disciplines