Senior National Consultant at Malaria Consortium

Malaria Consortium – Established in 2003, Malaria Consortium is one of the world’s leading non-profit organisations specialising in the prevention, control and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases among vulnerable populations. Our mission is to save lives and improve health in Africa and Asia, through evidence-based programmes that combat targeted diseases and promote universal health coverage.

Title: Senior National Consultant

Locations: Abuja & Osun

Employment Type: Contract

Project Background

• Malaria affects most Nigerians and remains a public health problem despite progress in the last two decades. Between 2008 and 2018, even though the overall under-five mortality rate (U5MR) reduced by 15.9 percent, from 157 to 132 per 1000 live births, the reduction in infant mortality rate (IMR) during the same period was less marked: 10.7 percent (from 75 to 67 per 1000 live births), with no noticeable change in the neonatal mortality rate over the same period (NDHS 2019).
• Perennial malaria chemoprevention (PMC) is the administration of effective antimalarial drugs to young children to provide personal protection against malaria where transmission rates are moderate-to-high and parasite resistance to sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine (SP) is not high. Under current WHO guidelines, the drug SP is delivered to children aged <24 months. PMC is safe, cost-effective, well accepted by health workers and communities, and has been found to reduce clinical malaria by 30%, and episodes of anaemia by 21% (Cairns et al., 2008).
• Despite the WHO recommendation since 2010, there has been limited uptake to date. The intervention is not yet adopted as one of the interventions in the Nigerian Malaria Control Policy. A rapid assessment of stakeholders’ perspectives on barriers to PMC policy uptake in Nigeria revealed that providing evidence on the feasibility, acceptability and effectiveness of the intervention at field level will be key for policy uptake.
• Malaria Consortium received funding to carry out an effectiveness-implementation hybrid project on the feasibility and effectiveness of PMC in Nigeria. It is aimed at generating the required evidence to inform policy and possible scale-up of PMC in Nigeria, and ultimately contribute towards a reduction in under 5 mortalities in the country. The project – a four-year commitment became effective on the 1st of November 2020. It is a hybrid design aimed at evaluating the effectiveness as well as the feasibility of delivering PMC through the expanded programme on immunization (EPI) platform.
• As part of the PMC implementation, the process evaluation will be carried out to assess the feasibility coverage, acceptability, adoption, fidelity of PMC, and other contextual factors that may affect the implementation. It will involve exit interviews with caregivers, observation of health workers during immunization sessions and SP administration, key informant interviews (KIIs) and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with caregivers, local leaders, stakeholders and health facility workers in the selected clusters. The results will be used to improve the implementation strategies in the SP-PMC study. Eight Local Government Areas in Osun State will be used for this study, which are: Ayedaade, Ede South, Atakunmosa West, Iwo, Irewole, Ife North, Obokun and Egbedore.

Purpose of the Assignment

• The purpose of this assignment is to assess the steps in the project’s theory of change model, understand the potential for PMC policy adoption and explore other markers of fidelity, integration, sustainability, coverage and processes from caregivers, local leaders, stakeholders and health facility workers in the project sites using quantitative and qualitative research approaches.

Scope of Work

• A household survey will be conducted among caregivers who have children aged 12 – 23 months across 40 intervention wards (clusters) to determine the coverage of SP doses after 12 months of implementation. Exit interviews will be conducted with the caregivers shortly after receiving SP during routine immunization session in the selected health facilities using a structured questionnaire and AIM tools. Health workers will be observed during the SP administration in the selected health facilities. A checklist will be used to document observation during service delivery. KIIs, IDIs and FDGs will be conducted with caregivers, local leaders, stakeholders and health facility workers to qualitatively explore context-based factors that may affect coverage, acceptability, adoption of PMC implemented via EPI platform. Caregivers of children 12 – 23 months children will be recruited from communities across the 40 intervention wards. Approximately 10 caregivers will be randomly selected from each of the ward/cluster in the intervention arm. Overall, 400 caregivers will be interviewed across the 40 intervention wards.
• Caregivers and health facility staff will be recruited from sentinel facilities and health posts during the implementation phase of the study: twelve months after the start of implementation period. On scheduled recruitment days, caregivers of eligible children visiting sentinel facilities and health posts for SP during immunization in each ward will be recruited to take part in the exit interview. Approximately 10 caregivers from each of the sentinel facilities and 5 caregivers from each of the health posts will be recruited for the exit interviews across the intervention wards. Overall, a -total of 600 exit interviews will be conducted and 80 observational checklists in the intervention arm of the study. FGD in an accessible, private location will also be conducted with the caregivers. Groups will be purposively sampled to represent a range of implementation and socio-demographic class (including age, gender, and staff type). Three groups will be convened per type of respondent (i.e. minimum of three for caregivers, fathers of children <24 months, local leaders and health workers and other identified participant types). Overall, a total of 12 FGDs will be conducted in the intervention arm. The study will aim to include 10-12 participants per caregiver FGDs and 4-10 participants per health staff/local leader/Stakeholder FGDs. KIIs will be conducted with health workers, local leaders and stakeholders in the intervention arm.

Specific Tasks
Expert Profile:
In consultation with the PMC project team:

• Review and finalize the sample size and methodology to be used to conduct the study (quantitative and qualitative)
• Review and finalize the study protocol for the quantitative and qualitative study
• Review and finalize the exit interview questionnaire, observational checklist, KIIs, FGDs guide and translate it into appropriate local languages
• Review and finalize data analysis plan
• Train data collectors or interviewers
• Pre-test and finalize questionnaire, checklist and interview guides
• Monitor the survey and the interviews as well as related activities
• Analyze the quantitative data (exit interview questionnaire and observational checklist)
• Validate the interview transcripts
• Analyze qualitative data
• Prepare draft report and present findings to PMC project team
• Finalize draft report

Deliverables for Senior National Consultant:

• Survey protocol, exit interview questionnaire and health workers observational checklist, KIIs and FGDs guides
• Completed interview guide(s) and sociodemographic form
• Data collection work plan
• Training report
• Qualitative data transcribed
• Validate the transcribed data
• Analyze the qualitative data
• Analyze quantitative data (household survey, exit interview questionnaire and observational checklist)
• Summary technical report and PowerPoint slide of key findings
• Presentation of key findings to project principal investigators and project team
• Final study report
• Final consultancy report

Person specifications
Essential:

• Senior national consultancy expertise in public health, epidemiology, global health, Demography, Sociology, implementation research and related fields with at least 10 years of experience
• MSc in a relevant academic field, PhD is an added advantage
• At least 10 years of professional experience in conducting process evaluation studies (quantitative and qualitative research) Familiarity with health facility surveys, exit interviews, and observational studies
• Familiarity with Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), In-depth Interviews (IDIs) or similar qualitative research tools is a plus
• Proven experience in writing reports for public health programs or projects in Nigeria or similar developing country context
• Knowledge of qualitative data analysis software such as Atlas ti, NVivo, Dedoose, etc.
• Knowledge of quantitative data analysis software such as Stata, R, Python, SAS, SPSS etc.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.

Desired:

• Extensive knowledge of the Nigerian public health sector
• A proven ability to work as part of a team and to be self-managing
• Experience in setting up and facilitating meetings
• Ability to work with little or no supervision
• Good writing and reporting skills
• Good presentation skills
• Proven academic experience, including pieces of research, publications, and written reports
• Excellent writing and oral communication skills in English.

Application Closing Date
20th August, 2024.

How to Apply:
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online

Note

• Applicants who do not follow this specification will be disqualified.
• Only Shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and the process may conclude before the advertised deadline. Therefore, early applications are highly encouraged.
• Malaria Consortium does not accept or ask for payment during recruitment. We also would not accept hardcopy CVs; all applications should be sent through the above link.