Evidence Production Consultant

Job Description

Background of the project

Despite significant advances in the treatment of acute malnutrition, such as the development of ready to use therapeutic food (RUTF) and shift from inpatient to outpatient treatment, CMAM (community-based management of acute malnutrition) coverage remains suboptimal worldwide. By last estimation, less than 30% of SAM cases (approximately 14.3 million annually) are able to access treatment services, even in places where CMAM has been integrated into health services. In recent years, there has been renewed focus on developing, testing and implementing new or adapted approaches – commonly referred to as “simplified approaches” to overcome the coverage gap.

In order to strengthen and continue to build the body of evidence on simplified approaches, IRC is engaged to produce evidence from our existing or recent implementation and/or research on simplified approaches. The program that has so far produced the most data on the implementation of a simplified protocol at scale is one implemented in Mali since 2018 and that has treated and collected data on over 35 000 children to date.

Several evidence production goals have been identified for this work including looking at the admission characteristics and treatment outcomes by season, looking at the association of distance from treatment and admission characteristics and treatment outcomes, looking at energy intake and weight and MUAC gain and looking at the weight and MUAC gain by MUAC category at admission.

Scope of Work:

The consultant will be engaged to work on the data analysis of 2 pieces of evidence preparing the data for analysis and constructing the analysis on a statistical software (STATA or R) according to a pre-defined statistical analysis plan. The 2 pieces of evidence are aiming to be written up for peer review by a researcher. The consultant will work in close collaboration with the researcher who will guide the analysis. Two weekly 1h meetings will be scheduled to track the advancement and provide support and guidance for the consultant. A Data Scientist will provide technical guidance to the consultant if needed from a coding and statistics perspective.

Deliverables:

Data analysis outputs in publication ready format according to statistical analysis plan

Mock tables pre-defined for each piece of work

Do-files containing all data preparation and analysis steps and clear explanation of each step

Payment Rate and Schedule:

The payment will be made once the consultant submits the final deliverables meaning the analysis outputs and the do-files.

Requirements:

Autonomous on STATA or R

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Qualifications