Background

The World Health Organization (WHO) is the United Nations agency dedicated to promoting health, keeping the world safe, and serving vulnerable populations. WHO works with countries and partners worldwide to strengthen health systems, monitor public health risks, coordinate responses to health emergencies, set international health standards, and generate evidence to inform health policies and programmes.

The Tobacco Surveillance Officer will support WHO’s Health Promotion, Social Determinants, Equity, Tobacco Control, Risk Communication and Community Engagement, Behavioural Science, and Urban Health (HPD) Programme within the Disease Prevention and Control Cluster. Based in Kampala, Uganda, the role will focus on coordinating tobacco surveillance, including the Global Tobacco Surveillance System (GTSS), supporting alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverage surveys, analysing trends, and strengthening evidence-informed tobacco control across Member States.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide technical support to Member States in planning and implementing youth and adult tobacco-related surveys.
• Support the design of survey tools, protocols and systematic surveillance mechanisms for monitoring tobacco use, including new and emerging tobacco and nicotine products.
• Support Member States in collecting data on alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages for global reporting.
• Analyse survey data and support the development and implementation of effective data dissemination mechanisms.
• Collect and validate data for WHO global reports on the tobacco epidemic and trends in tobacco use.
• Conduct regional tobacco control policy and data analysis.
• Develop technical materials, including progress reports, fact sheets, presentations, guides, tools and advocacy materials.
• Contribute to manuscripts documenting and disseminating project lessons.
• Participate in technical working groups, meetings and forums and contribute to technical and administrative reporting on tobacco-related issues.

Profile Required

Experience

• Minimum of 3 years of relevant professional experience at the national or international level in:
  • Public health
  • Epidemiology
  • Public policy
  • Socio-economic development
• Experience managing or working with public health data related to risk factors, health outcomes and health policies is desirable. Experience with WHO, other UN agencies or international organizations, as well as experience working in developing countries, is considered an advantage.
• Candidates should also have strong knowledge of public health surveillance and data analysis methodologies and a solid understanding of global tobacco control strategies, including the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and MPOWER measures.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Medicine, Public Health, Epidemiology, or a related field.
• An advanced degree in Public Health, Epidemiology, Medicine or a related discipline is desirable.

Languages

• Fluent English – required
• Fluent French – required

Special Notice

UN Volunteers serve full-time in their professional expertise, supported by a benefits package, including a monthly living allowance (MLA) to ensure a secure standard of living at their duty stations.

• Provide technical support to Member States in planning and implementing youth and adult tobacco-related surveys.
• Support the design of survey tools, protocols and systematic surveillance mechanisms for monitoring tobacco use, including new and emerging tobacco and nicotine products.
• Support Member States in collecting data on alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages for global reporting.
• Analyse survey data and support the development and implementation of effective data dissemination mechanisms.
• Collect and validate data for WHO global reports on the tobacco epidemic and trends in tobacco use.
• Conduct regional tobacco control policy and data analysis.
• Develop technical materials, including progress reports, fact sheets, presentations, guides, tools and advocacy materials.
• Contribute to manuscripts documenting and disseminating project lessons.
• Participate in technical working groups, meetings and forums and contribute to technical and administrative reporting on tobacco-related issues.

• Public health surveillance
• Data analysis methodologies
• Global tobacco control strategies
• WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC)
• MPOWER measures

• Bachelor’s degree in Medicine, Public Health, Epidemiology, or a related field.
• An advanced degree in Public Health, Epidemiology, Medicine or a related discipline is desirable.