Data Specialist - (Fixed Term Contract - Remotely - Wits Alive)

About the position The Clinical Terminology and Data Management Assistant supports the data manager and project teams by ensuring the integrity, organisation, and coding of research data for GVDN’s multi-country vaccine safety and effectiveness studies. This role focuses on diagnosis coding (e.g., ICD-10), data transfer and storage, and supporting REDCap and related data management processes. The role will help maintain data quality and consistency across diverse health systems.

Responsibilities

• Assist in developing, reviewing, and maintaining diagnosis code lists and mappings (e.g., ICD-10, ICD-10 variants, SNOMED, MedDRA) used across GVDN projects.
• Ensure coding lists align with study-specific case definitions and international frameworks (e.g., Brighton Collaboration, GAIA).
• Support the design and refinement of diagnosis-code–based screening definitions, under the guidance of epidemiologists and clinical experts.
• Identify deprecated or ambiguous codes and recommend updates to reduce misclassification.
• Help harmonise code lists across projects while maintaining study-specific analytic intent.
• Assist the transfer and integration of data from external sources into central databases (e.g., REDCap data transfers from local to central).
• Assist with data storage, organisation, and documentation to ensure data security and accessibility.
• Maintain audit trails and documentation for all data handling activities.
• Assist the Data Quality and Assurance Manager in preparing data for analysis and reporting.
• Work with Epidemiologists, Data Managers, and Clinical experts to ensure outcomes are operationalised appropriately in routine clinical data.
• Advise terminology and coding considerations affecting data screening and interpretation.
• Contribute to internal guidance documents, Standard Operating Procedure (SOPs), and technical notes related to coding and data management.
• Maintain clear documentation of coding decisions, version history, and rationale.
• Support quality assurance processes by reviewing diagnosis tables for internal consistency and traceability.
• Contribute to capacity-strengthening discussions with partner sites regarding good data management practices.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Public Health, Health Informatics, Epidemiology, Life Sciences, or related fields.
• Experience working with coded clinical data (e.g., ICD-10) in research, surveillance, registry, or health systems contexts.
• Familiarity with REDCap and data management workflows.
• Strong attention to detail and organisational skills.
• Ability to communicate clearly with multidisciplinary teams.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience supporting medicine or vaccine safety, effectiveness, or post-authorisation surveillance studies.
• Familiarity with Brighton Collaboration, GAIA, or similar standardised case definitions.
• Experience working with data in African or other LMIC settings.
• Familiarity with data harmonisation approaches or common data models in multi-site research (interpretive perspective).