Epidemiologist - Drug User Health and Safety

Title: Epidemiologist - Drug User Health & Safety Location: Remote/Virtual - Must live and work in Michigan Requisition ID 4889 Remote/Virtual - Administrative - Full-Tim Job Description: Purpose: The Drug User Health and Safety Epidemiologist works within the Supportive Alternatives to First-response & Enforcement (SAFE) Pathways Unit in advancing efforts related to drug user health and safety, along with criminal legal system diversion initiatives. This position is responsible for conducting data analysis and program evaluation aimed at dismantling structural inequities that disproportionately funnel historically marginalized and vulnerable populations into the criminal legal system. The Epidemiologist translates complex public health and criminal legal system data into actionable strategies that reduce morbidity, mortality, and criminalization among Michiganders. This position assists in the design, methodology development, analysis, and execution of epidemiological investigations related to infectious diseases associated with substance use and first response activities. The role operates at the intersection of infectious disease prevention, harm reduction, behavioral health, and the criminal legal system and will work with a variety of complex datasets, including the Michigan Disease Surveillance System, Michigan Medicaid Warehouse, Michigan Inpatient Database, and other datasets related to the criminal legal system, including arrest and incarceration data. Through cross-sector data analysis and collaboration, this position supports evidence-based approaches that improve health outcomes and reduce barriers to care for individuals impacted by substance use. Duties and Responsibilities:

• Design, execute, and manage epidemiological investigations and special studies analyzing the intersections of substance use, infectious diseases, and institutional touchpoints.
• Analyze complex datasets to evaluate how social determinants of health and structural barriers (e.g., housing instability, public assistance enrollment, incarceration, policing) intersect and compound the risk of spreading infectious diseases, morbidity and mortality associated with complications of substance use and criminalization.
• Perform advanced statistical matching, data cleaning, and quality control across large, disparate datasets and data sources (e.g., MDSS, Michigan Medicaid Data Warehouse, HMIS, and local jail booking/arrest registries).
• Monitor and evaluate key performance metrics for state opioid response efforts, specifically focusing on pre-arrest deflection, pre-trial diversion, and community-based alternatives to incarceration.
• Develop and analyze tracking metrics for law enforcement training initiatives, assessing the impact of harm reduction and crisis de-escalation curricula on policing behaviors and trends, arrest rates, and connection to community-based systems of care.
• Translate complex data into public-facing and partner-specific resources to disseminate results of investigations, special studies, routine surveillance, analyses of harm reduction data, interactive data dashboards, and visualizations that highlight geographic and demographic disparities.
• Collaborate with cross-functional epidemiological teams across MDHHS and local jurisdictions to align unit goals with broader statewide opioid, infection disease, and health equity initiatives.
• Maintain strict proficiency with Section, CDC, and HIPAA confidentiality and security guidelines regarding sensitive health and legal data.
• Foster and maintain positive, strong, credible, professional, and interpersonal, and collaborative relationships with all parties relevant to MPHI/MDHHS projects and represents the best interest of MPHI/MDHHS at all times.
• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Qualifications/Requirements: Education: Possession of a master’s degree with a major in epidemiology or public health with a minimum of 8 semester (12 term) graduate-level hours in epidemiology and biostatistics courses. Experience: Two years of professional experience carrying out a variety of surveys, investigations, tests, and analyses of human disease and chronic health conditions. The candidate should have strong computer processing (e.g. Microsoft Suite, RedCap) and statistical methodology and software skills (e.g. SAS, R). Important Skills and Characteristics:

• Considerable knowledge of the basic principles and methods of epidemiology, the methods used to conduct epidemiological investigations, methods used to organize and analyze large sets of health data.
• Demonstrate the ability to prepare technical reports, records, and papers related to the work.
• Capacity to self-initiate work to creatively identify trends in data for possible interventions.
• Ability to communicate effectively with others.
• Ability to analyze surveillance data and other information for the purposes of determining the need for epidemiological investigations.
• Ability to organize results of studies into written form for publication, presentation, or dissemination.

Work Environment and Physical Requirements: Job may require moderate physical effort including lifting materials and equipment of Apply To This Job