CHRONIC DISEASE PREVENTION SPECIALIST

Job Role Summary

Responsible for promoting the prevention of chronic diseases by serving as a specialist and advisor for upstream strategies and interventions that enable cross-sector collaboration, embed equity into program planning, and enhance staff development.  Provides consultation and encouragement for the development of policies, procedures, and guidelines relative to commercial tobacco control, healthy food, physical activity especially within transportation, parks, economic, health equity and other social determinants of health.    

Associated Job Duties

• Conducts comprehensive reviews and develops resources on chronic disease prevention strategies including those related to health disparity reduction, tobacco, vaping, and secondhand smoke, transportation, parks, and food system entities.  
• Provides leadership, guidance, and other support to multi-sector partnerships and community coalitions. 
• Partners with diverse teams and leaders across the community on health equity programs and initiatives.
• Compiles and presents requested survey and other non-public data, i.e. smoke free multi-unit housing, programmatic surveying, etc.
• Creates protocols, implements strategies, and leads teams to carry out community-based projects. 
• Offers evidence-based models and support for the adoption of policies, procedures, and guidelines, related to comprehensive tobacco control issues, access to healthy foods/beverages and limited access to unhealthy foods/beverages. 
• Creates and manages department-level internship program including developing procedures, creating checklists, procuring equipment/office space/other resources, carrying out on-boarding/off-boarding and providing supervision to interns. 
• Prepares and delivers presentations and conducts training for professional and paraprofessional personnel on built environment and chronic disease prevention issues. 
• Provides tactical support such as technical consultation, grant writing, media advocacy, and leveraging other resources to enable communities to increase access to healthy foods/beverages, decrease access to unhealthy foods/beverages, and increase physical activity. 
• Designs and develops programmatic educational print material and electronic messaging as necessary and requested. 
• Maintains confidentiality of information: (a breech is reason for termination).
• Participates in public health emergency preparedness exercises and in the response to public health emergencies, as directed. 
• Participates in a minimum of two H.O.P.E. events totaling a minimum of eight (8) hours annually. 
• Other duties as assigned.

Associated Job Duties Cont'd

• Seeks external funding in the area of prevention and control of chronic disease.
• Functions as team member along with other Chronic Disease Program staff.
• Assumes responsibility for professional self-growth and continued development in relevant professional discipline as well as public health practices.

Qualifications

• Completion of Master Degree in Public Health, Public Policy, Public Affairs, Health Education/Promotion, or a related field and one year of experience in public health or related field. Or a BS/BA in Public Health, Public Policy, Health Education, or a related field and three years of experience in public health or related field.
• Use of automobile.

Licenses/Certifications Required

• Current Indiana driver’s license.

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities

• Basic understanding of the structure, operations, policies, and influences of public health systems.
• Experience in creating and implementing policies, guidelines, and/or protocols within organizations. 
• Knowledge of operational, mathematical, analytical and statistical research techniques used in decision making.

Knowledge of:

• Public health principals and concepts.
• Institutional policy development.
• Data management/analysis.
• Intermediary statistical methods.

Language Skills:

• Interact tactfully with internal and external organizational personnel, public, and community groups.
• Convene work teams and provide leadership in complex, stressful situations.
• Exercise deductive reasoning, professional judgment, and accept responsibility for decisions.
• Write meaningful and complex technical plan reviews, reports and, policies/ procedure manuals.

Mathematical Skills:

• Compute rate, ratio, percent and to design and interpret simple graphs. 

Reasoning Ability:

• Read, analyze, and interpret professional journals and government regulations.
• Solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists.
• Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form.
• Flexibility and high level of organizational skill to respond effectively to changing situations, priorities, and locations.

Working Environment

• Primarily office environment; outreach activities in varied public sites throughout the county.
• Physical demands include lifting light weight materials on a routine basis.