Senior Research Associate

Georgia State University • Atlanta, GA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

At the Georgia Health Policy Center (GHPC), we approach our work with a passion for being excellent, to positively impact people’s lives, and to find creative and innovative ways to learn and fulfill our goals. We are growing, and we are thrilled that you are interested in being a part of our team. We are surrounded by individuals empowered to use their expertise and talents to achieve our mission to integrate research, policy, and programs to advance health and well-being.
Are you ready for us? Are you seeking an opportunity with purpose and direction? If you are, we have the perfect opportunity for you! We hire great people from a wide variety of educational, career, and personal backgrounds, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because it makes our team stronger.
The center’s current scope of work includes behavioral health, health & health care financing, health in all policies, health systems transformation, long-term services & support, maternal health & child well-being, population & global health, and rural health. The center conducts, analyzes, and disseminates qualitative and quantitative data to connect decisionmakers with the objective research and guidance needed to make informed decisions about health policy and programs. The center is at work locally, nationally, and internationally with public and private partners to improve health and well-being.
The successful candidate will lead advanced analysis of large-scale administrative health care claims databases and will oversee prospective survey-based data collection. Our work involves analyzing real-world administrative health care data, evaluating public health programs and policy impacts, and translating findings for diverse audiences, including policymakers and health care systems. This position is suited to an experienced analyst who brings deep expertise in claims data and a strong interest in both academic and applied research within a public-sector and academic environment.
This is an Atlanta-based, in-office position.

Requirements

• Deep expertise in administrative health care data, including claims data (e.g., Medicaid, Medicare, commercial insurance, or allpayer claims databases), hospital discharge data (e.g., HCUP data), commercially available electronic health care databases (e.g., IQVIA or Epic).
• Knowledge of health care coding systems, including ICD-10, CPT/HCPCS, DRG, CCS, NDC, NPPES, and SNOWMED.
• Demonstrated understanding of parametric and non-parametric bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses, including descriptive and inferential statistics. Experience conducting both cross-sectional and longitudinal statistical analyses.
• Expertise in prospective survey creation, dissemination, and analysis, using Qualtrics software.
• Ability to independently assess model assumptions, conduct sensitivity analyses, and interpret results in the context of policyrelevant research questions.
• Highly technical programming skills in SAS (especially PROC SQL). Additional knowledge of R or Python is desirable.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills for both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Ability to lead the writing of methods and results sections for project reports and peer-reviewed academic publications.
• Technical mastery of the following data practices: · Relational data management, including merging multiple variable types, aggregation and disaggregation of data, deduplicating data, and summarizing data by groups (e.g., counting, averaging, summing). · Macro variable processing, creating macros and user-defined functions, array processing, and data-driven dynamic programming. · Lagging and leading functions, finding the first and last observation by identifiers. · Iterative processing, including looping and nested looping. · Working with dates and calculating time differences between observations, filtering datasets and observations by dates for reporting/analysis purposes. · Reshaping data from wide to long and long to wide. · Working with both cross-sectional and longitudinal data.
• Ph.D. with two years of experience; or a combination of education and related experience.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s or doctoral degree in public health, health policy, public administration, health economics, social science, or a related field, and two to three years of prior experience in a full-time, analytic position.
• Prior use of Medicaid claims data and understanding of managed care and fee-for-service health care policy.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to designing, conducting, and managing complex, long-term health services research and evaluation studies.
• Assess the implementation, effectiveness, and impact of public health programs and complex health policy changes.
• Lead analyses of administrative health care claims data, including medical, pharmacy, and eligibility files.
• Lead prospective, survey-based data collection and analysis efforts.
• Conduct data cleaning, linkage, validation, and documentation to support high-quality research and evaluation.
• Translate and communicate research and evaluation results for various audiences, including policymakers, academic audiences, community-based organizations, lay people, health care providers, and health care systems.
• Contribute to report writing, including reports to high-stakes clients and manuscripts submitted to peer-reviewed journals and conferences.

Benefits

• Professional development opportunities and mentorship
• Competitive base salary
• Generous benefits, including health, dental, vision, tuition assistance, retirement, etc.
• A rapidly growing center within an academic setting

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree