Epidemiologist, Brain Health

Serve as an entry-level epidemiologist responsible for carrying out investigative and analytical epidemiologic activities related to the surveillance, detection, and prevention of diseases and injuries, with a primary program focus on Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, brain health, healthy aging, caregiver needs, and dementia risk reduction. Working as a team member under the direction of the Dementia Program Director and with technical guidance from Senior Epidemiologists, conduct routine epidemiologic functions;

develop, analyze, and interpret dementia-related data; provide technical assistance to Tribal Nations; and provide training on epidemiologic principles and the appropriate use of dementia and public health data. Support the development of culturally responsive data products that help Tribal partners understand dementia burden, disparities, risk and protective factors, service needs, and program outcomes. Attendance as scheduled is an essential function of this position.

Travel is required. This position can be in our Green Bay, Wisconsin office, Madison, Wisconsin office or Grand Rapids, Michigan office. This position is not a remote position.

• Provide epidemiologic functions, including the collection, management, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of federal, state, Tribal, clinical, survey, and program data relevant to dementia and brain health.
• Participate in epidemiologic investigations and studies using accepted scientific and technical methods to identify and evaluate dementia prevalence, cognitive health concerns, dementia-related outcomes, caregiver needs, service use, and related health conditions.
• Assess the availability, quality, completeness, comparability, and limitations of dementia-related data for American Indian and Alaska Native populations, and clearly communicate data gaps and cautions in interpretation.
• Assist in developing dementia surveillance approaches and indicators using available administrative, clinical, survey, mortality, hospitalization, Medicare or Medicaid, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, caregiving, and other appropriate data sources, subject to data-use requirements.
• Provide assistance with health data collection and the use of data for program planning, priority setting, grant reporting, and evaluation in dementia, healthy aging, caregiving, chronic disease, injury, infectious disease, maternal and child health, and other areas defined by service-area needs.
• Acquire, analyze, and summarize data for community health profiles and dementia or brain health data products for Tribes in the Bemidji area and nationally.
• Use descriptive and inferential epidemiologic methods to calculate and interpret counts, rates, proportions, trends, confidence intervals, age-adjusted measures, disparities, and other appropriate statistics.
• Examine modifiable dementia risk factors and protective factors, including cardiovascular health, diabetes, tobacco use, physical activity, social connection, hearing, education, and other relevant measures, while considering Indigenous social determinants of health and community strengths.
• Support analyses of dementia-related mortality, diagnosis patterns, potentially preventable utilization, access to assessment and services, caregiver burden, program reach, and health-system capacity when valid data are available.
• Use surveillance and program-monitoring systems to collect disease, health-outcome, caregiving, training, technical-assistance, and implementation data while maintaining data quality and confidentiality.
• Develop data-collection instruments, data dictionaries, codebooks, analysis plans, standard operating procedures, dashboards, tables, charts, maps, and other tools needed for dementia and brain health monitoring and evaluation.
• Apply quality-assurance procedures, document analytic decisions, maintain reproducible files, and consult senior staff regarding small numbers, unstable estimates, missing data, misclassification, and other analytic limitations.
• Conduct literature reviews and environmental scans and assist in preparing reports using behavioral science, demographic, evaluation, and epidemiologic methods related to dementia risk reduction, healthy aging, caregiving, early detection, and dementia-capable systems.
• Translate epidemiologic findings into clear, culturally responsive summaries for Tribal leaders, clinic staff, program staff, caregivers, community members,…