STATISTICAL RESEARCH SPECIALIST III

Position Overview

The Illinois Department of Public Health is seeking a highly motivated individual to serve as Statistical Research Specialist 3. This position will be responsible for, but not limited to, implementing the State of Illinois’s surveillance system for Emergency Department (ED) visit data submitted to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Syndromic Surveillance Program (NSSP), formerly known as BioSense; design and deploy IDPH’s ambulatory visit data collection in accordance with Meaningful Use public health reporting requirements, evaluate and analyze all visit data captures in the syndromic surveillance systems for Eligible Hospitals (EHs) and Eligible Provider (Eps) to advance population health surveillance for public health decisionmaking on prevention, policy, intervention and disease control efforts.

Benefits Statement

As a State of Illinois Employee, you will receive a robust benefit package that includes the following:

• Flexible and hybrid work schedules are available in many program areas (when available and dependent upon position) 
• Competitive Group Insurance benefits including health, life, dental and vision plans.
• Pension plan through the State Employees Retirement System
• Deferred Compensation Program – voluntary supplemental retirement plan
• Optional pre-tax programs -Medical Care Assistance Plan (MCAP) & Dependent Care Assistant Plan (DCAP)
• 10-25 days of paid vacation time annually (10 days for first year of state employment)
• 12 paid sick days annually which carryover year to year
• 3 paid personal business days per calendar year (pro-rated dependent on start date)
• 13-14 paid holidays per year
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave
• Employee Assistance Program and/or mental health resources

These are just a few of the many perks available to all State employees. For more information about our benefits please follow this link: https://www2.illinois.gov/cms/benefits/Pages/default.aspx.

Essential Functions

• Under direction, implements the State of Illinois’s surveillance systems for communicable disease data.
• Designs an ambulatory syndromic surveillance system for collecting visit data in accordance with Meaningful Use public health reporting.
• Conducts advanced statistical analysis of infectious disease data utilizing Illinois-National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (I-NEDSS) Analysis, Visualization and Reporting (AVR) and the NSSP tools, including Business Objects, Crystal Reports R and R Studio software and other analytical tools.
• Performs analysis for testing and validating electronic laboratory data to ensure that laboratory test results are valid and mapped to the correct, reportable conditions utilizing knowledge of infectious disease surveillance and epidemiology for improved outbreak detection and to ensure that accurate information is given to local health department staff to appropriately guide disease investigations.
• Responds to inquiries from hospitals and providers regarding Meaningful Use public health objectives, maintaining liaisons with these health care providers.
• Performs other duties as required or assigned which are reasonable within the scope of the duties enumerated above.

Minimum Requirements

• Requires knowledge, skill, and mental development equivalent to completion of four (4) years of college with courses in statistics, computer science, mathematics, economics and related fields.
• Requires two (2) years of progressively responsible experience in the development and application of research designs and statistical methods and techniques, preferably in the job related subject matter area.

Preferred Qualifications

• Three (3) or more years of experience working in communicable disease surveillance in a public health organization.
• Two (2) or more years of experience validating communicable disease data quality and performing continuous quality assessment of the data, include analyzing and reporting.
• Two (2) or more years of experience working with LOINC codes, SNOMED codes, or HL7 messaging standards.
• Possession of a Master’s degree or higher in public health, medicine, epidemiology, informatics, or a related field.
• Two (2) or more years of experience using tools for data visualization and analysis such as Tableau or Power BI to generate reports.

About the Agency

The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) is tasked with the oversight of communities within Illinois to achieve and maintain optimal health and safety. With an annual budget of over $2 billion in state and federal funds, 6 regional offices, 3 laboratories and over 1,200 employees, IDPH is equipped to fulfill its mission of protecting the health and wellness of the people of Illinois through the prevention, health promotion, regulation and control of disease and injury.