Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region most heavily affected by HIV worldwide. Disparities in prevalence among men and women are of great concern: young women aged 15-24 are three to four times more likely to be infected than young men of the same age and in many countries prevalence rates for older women also exceed those for men the same age. For young women, there are also differences based on region, rural-urban residence, tribal and religious affiliation, and other factors. More information is needed to better understand these disparities. One explanation for the male-female disparity is sex primarily motivated by material gain (food, cosmetics, clothes, transportation, items for children or family, school fees, somewhere to sleep or cash). This “transactional sex” often involves age mixing between older men and younger women. However, it is important to note that these sexual relationships differ from those traditionally defined as commercial sex.
The Academy for Educational Development (AED) headquarters office/USA the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/Atlanta, USA are developing a multi-country protocol for a study examining the factors motivating people to engage in such relationships. The first, formative, phase of the project will include a standardized rapid assessment and social network study to contextualize transactional sex and identify appropriate interventions and messages to decrease HIV risk. The study will be conducted in two countries: Cote d’Ivoire and Zambia.
Job Summary/Job Functions:
A highly-trained Site Coordinator is needed in each country to work in collaboration with local country investigators, AED, and the CDC to oversee protocol implementation in the country site(s), perform systematic analyses of formative data, and maintain regular communication with the community and AED.
Specifically, the Site Coordinator will:
- Oversee activities for the duration of data collection (approximately 4-5 months) and provide direct supervision to data collectors.
- Apply principles of community engagement to identify and work with community partners, and monitor community response to the formative research.
- Accompany AED and the CDC in initial site visits to engage target communities
- Work with AED to organize research:
- Identify qualified partners to carry out data collection, which will involve qualitative interviews, observations, focus groups, social network data collection, and ethnographic and GPS mapping.
- Develop a timetable of data collection
- Organize training of data collection teams and partner staff, as required, on data collection methods, analysis, protocol implementation, and protection of human subjects, in coordination with AED/CDC.
Work with field team to ensure quality of data collection and promptly address any issues. Specifically,
- Closely monitor field activities and provide direct supervision to data collectors
- Oversee the translating and back translating of training materials into country-specific languages.
- Work with AED to hire transcribers that meet CDC specifications.
- Ensure interview recordings reach transcribers within 24 hours.
- Ensure interviewers work with transcribers to review accuracy within 48 hours of receipt and will record changes.
- Ensure reviewed English transcriptions are submitted within 7 days of interviews.
- Oversee implementation of multiple methods to collect formative data and network information and appropriate data input.
- Conduct daily debriefing sessions with data collectors to provide feedback on interviewing skills.
- Review track changes in each transcript for one month to determine error rate and evaluate if continued documentation of track changes is necessary.
- Ensure systems are in place to provide informed consent, secure data in the field and maintain confidentiality
- Manage protocol implementation (i.e.: confidentiality, back-up of data)
Assist in data analysis and interpretation
- Participate in weekly calls to report on progress and outstanding issues, action points, next steps, as well as provide written updates as required.
Education: Masters or doctorate degree in a social science
Experience/Qualifications:
- Strong leadership and managerial skills
- Strong analysis and communication (both written and oral) skills
- Have knowledge of the literature relevant to project goal and objectives, including a basic understanding of how HIV is transmitted
- Previous experience in conducting HIV prevention research and use of the methods such as observation, ethnographic mapping, focus groups, in-depth individual interviews
- Experience or ability to learn new research methods such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and social network mapping
- Skills necessary to train and implement in-depth ethnographic interviews including active listening, probing, establishing trust and rapport with the respondent, and acting in a non-judgmental, non-stigmatizing manner
- Ability to integrate multiple data sources
- Knowledge of local language(s)
