Research Analyst 1 - Dept. of Health Policy

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Virginia Commonwealth University is an equal opportunity, affirmative action university providing access to education and employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, political affiliation, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or disability.

Position Summary:

The Department of Health Policy is actively recruiting a Research Analyst. The purpose of this role is to support research focusing on improving health outcomes and addressing health disparities using claims and survey data. The Research Analyst 1 will support the PI (Principal Investigator) in evaluating Virginia Medicaid programs and policies. The ideal candidate will have strong quantitative data analysis skills, experience working with SAS and SQL in large databases, and experience and/or interest in public health or health policy.

Special Duties and Responsibilities: 

• Provide database development & management as well as statistical programming and analyses for health policy research projects and ad-hoc requests
• Collaborate and contribute to the development of abstracts, presentations and publications to effectively share research findings and insights
• Extract and transform data from an external secure database using SQL and SAS at the request of stakeholders and PI
• Work closely with PI and research staff to develop and carry out data analysis plans for health policy research projects using large health insurance claims and administrative databases
• Provide statistical results in tables, plots, and graphs for publications and grant submissions
• Implement best practices in data management to ensure data quality and integrity
• Document and maintain analytic files
• Perform database storage utilization audits

Required Qualifications: 

• Bachelor's degree in Public Health, Health Policy, Data Science, Statistics, or a related field
• Understanding of health services research and other health-oriented outcomes
• Must be proficient in either SAS or SQL; candidates lacking this proficiency will not be considered
• Ability to translate concepts and methodologies into programming languages
• Skilled in creating data applications and writing programs for analytical and reporting purposes
• Have demonstrated experience working with large, complex data files (e.g., claims data, SEER-Medicare datasets), linking and integrating data from disparate databases, and transforming raw data into meaningful finished products
• Excellent communication skills, team-based project experience, and ability to multitask
• Must have a demonstrated commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion in past experiences or a commitment to do so as a staff member at VCU

Preferred Qualifications:

• Master’s degree in a relevant field of study (e.g., public health, statistics, data science, etc.)
• 2 years of experience working with large, complex data in a research environment or healthcare organization
• Data management experience in an academic and/or healthcare environment
• Experience using software applications such as REDCap and/or Qualtrics for participant tracking and data collection
• Extensive knowledge and skills with data management, integration, analysis, and technical proficiency in SAS and/or SQL
• Documented experience writing queries in SQL and SAS for data analysis, modeling, and design

The School of Public Health continuously strives for our workplace and learning environment to reflect the demographic and social milieu of the communities we serve. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply.

This position requires on-site 3-5 days per week.

This is a restricted position with no set end date and continued employment is dependent upon project need, availability of funding, and performance.

University Job Code: 33231

ORP Eligible: No

VCU is committed to hiring veterans! VCU will include a veteran's period(s) of military service in the calculation of their annual leave accrual rate. This may provide veterans with an increased leave accrual!

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