Research Coordinator : Sangath

Sangath is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation headquartered in Goa, with hubs in New Delhi, Bhopal, and Pune. Sangath in its 28th year of existence and has experience conducting high-quality community based research and implementation in child development, adolescent and youth health, adult mental health, ageing and chronic diseases, health equity and addictions research. Sangath has won the prestigious MacArthur

Foundation International Prize for Creative and Effective Institutions (2008), was recognized as India’s 4th leading public health research institute by Research Councils UK (2015) and won the WHO Public Health Champion Award (2016). You can know more about the organisation on our
website (https://sangath.in/who-we-are/).

The Sangath Bhopal hub has been in existence since 2011 and now operates in 10 districts of Madhya Pradesh in close collaboration with government departments such as the NHM and the WCD.

Project: KushalMaa
Study Duration: January 2024- May 2027
Required Experience: 3-5 Years
Job Location: Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh (Frequent travel to research sites in Sehore)
Positions: 1 (Full time- working 5 days a week- Monday-Friday)
Reports to: Senior Research Coordinator
Joining: September 2024
Tenure: Initially 1 year, with renewal of contract based on performance and availability of the funding.

About the Project
The goal of this study is to assess the effectiveness of a culturally-tailored mobile interactive education and support group intervention to supplement standard postpartum care activities in comparison to standard care alone on health-related behaviors and health outcomes in a randomized controlled trial among 2100 postpartum Indian women living in 3 geographically diverse Indian states to estimate the impact on maternal and neonatal health-related knowledge, health-related behaviors, and health outcomes. The investigators also seek to characterize mechanisms of impact including knowledge, social support, self-efficacy, and behaviour change, and determine the cost-effectiveness.

More details on the study are available https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05268588

Objectives
Primary: To quantify the effectiveness of an mHealth interactive education and social support intervention on exclusive breastfeeding, postpartum family planning, and postpartum depression. Secondary: To characterize the mechanisms of impact of the mHealth intervention on maternal and neonatal health in India. Determine the cost-effectiveness of the mHealth intervention in improving postpartum maternal and neonatal health as compared to the standard of care.

Collaborating Institutions

• University of California San Francisco, USA
• Post Graduate Institute for Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India
• Indraprastha Institute for Information Technology, Delhi, India
• Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Maharashtra, India
• Funder
• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (National Institutes
  of Health, USA)

About the Role
We are seeking to recruit a Research Coordinator for this project for the Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) site reporting to the Senior Research Coordinator. This key position will play an important role in the research component of the KushalMaa study.

Scope of Work

• Develop the ethics proposal, consent forms, and participant information sheets for ethics clearance, and finalise the outcome assessment tools in both Hindi and English.
• Obtain approvals from relevant ethics committee, and state, district and block health systems officials for the project activities.
• Train, mentor and supervise the Research Assistants (RAs) in conducting research activities.
• Support the study Senior Research Coordinator and study investigators in study assessments,
  documentation, report writing, presentations in the meetings, etc.
• Coordinate with the district and block health systems officials to organise research activities in the field i.e., planning, coordination and implementation of consent, baseline, and follow up assessments of the trial participants.
• Develop research outputs such as research summary, analysis tables and reports.
• Supervise the data collection process by RAs and provide regular feedback for quality assurance.
• Schedule and participate in the regular project meetings, finalize summary notes and meeting minutes.
• Regularly update the Senior Research Coordinator, Co-investigators and Principal Investigator on study
  planning, coordination and implementation.
• Regularly communicate and follow up with other larger research team members and teams in the other sites to plan on research/study uptake activities.
• Lead and/or co-lead and/or support the relevant study manuscript(s).
• Assist with and participate in other Sangath activities, as well as execute tasks related to Sangath project(s) as assigned by the supervisor and senior project leadership.

Essential requirements

• A Post graduate degree in Public Health, or related Social Sciences i.e., social work, psychology, etc.
• Working experience of managing a team, liaising and coordinating with relevant health system stakeholders and study collaborators.
• Expertise in MS Office Ecosystems (Word, PowerPoint, Excel).
• Strong verbal and written communication skills including technical and scientific writing.
• Prior experience in systematic and narrative literature reviews will be an advantage.
• Prior experience in quantitative research methods, data collection and data analysis.
• At least 3-5 years of relevant public health work experience especially research projects.
• An independent, organised, proactive and self-motivated team player.
• Fluency in reading, speaking, and writing local language Hindi.

Additional requirements

• Expertise in working in, including field data collection in the Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health domain including administering informed consent (preferred).
• Fundamental-to-moderate level experience in quantitative analysis using R, SPSS or Stata.

Remuneration
INR 7.20-8.40 lakh per annum (All staff benefits including EPF, health insurance and gratuity will be additional as per organizational policy).

Last Date and address for applications

Please send with your CV to abhishek.singh@sangath.in before the 16 September 2024 with the subject line on the top of CV “Application for the post of KushalMaa Research Coordinator”. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis, so we encourage early applications.

Sangath is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, status as a protected veteran, among other things, or status as a qualified individual with a disability. We encourage applications from under-represented communities in the research sphere.