Global Health Postdoctoral Research Fellowship: Tech-Enhanced Pediatric Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) Prevention

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital seeks 3 highly motivated postdoctoral researchers interested in developing, deploying, or evaluating technology-enhanced population and global health to join our interdisciplinary research team for a 2-year research fellowship position.

The Research Fellows will join a collaborative “Strategically Focused Research Network” Center, a 4-year research grant from the American Heart Association (AHA).

The Center, titled: Active Case Detection and Decentralized Dynamic Registry to Improve the Uptake of Rheumatic Heart Disease Secondary Prevention (ADD-RHD), aims to reduce the global burden of rheumatic heart disease (RHD). RHD affects at least 40 million people and kills 300,000 people each year – disproportionally affecting children living in socioeconomically disadvantaged populations.  The Center will tackle RHD by developing two technologies that will increase the uptake of secondary prevention for people living with RHD including (1) Navigational Guidance for echocardiography to facilitate non-expert users to obtain diagnostic quality images (find more cases) and (2) a dynamic mobile registry to facilitate active community-based case management and delivery of secondary prophylaxis.

Each of the three fellowships will last for 2 years, during which the Research Fellows will receive training in a variety of disciplines including: health technologies, global public health, clinical cardiology, ethics and research design, and international advocacy and public policy. The training program is highly customizable and can be tailored to each fellow’s background and area of interest.  Fellows should plan to spend at least 3 months on the ground in Uganda, where they will work directly on project implementation and gain critical field experience in global health research.

Fellowship Core Training and Potential Pathways   

The training program will be based at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.  The goal of the fellowship is for each Center Fellow to gain skills in development of health technology, global public health, clinical cardiology, ethics and research design, and advocacy and public policy. Fellows will also choose a focus pathway with a mentor and primary project in their area of focus.  Fellows will have the option to also rotate at our partner institutions/organizations including: Northern Kentucky University Center for Heath Innovation, The University of Washington, Seattle, Caption Health, Children’s National Medical Center, Washington DC, and REACH (a global advocacy organization for RHD).

Required Education

A PhD, MD, DO, DVM or equivalent doctoral degree is required of all applicants. We anticipate a diverse pool of applicants including global health practitioners, clinician scientists, bioinformatics and healthcare technology experts with a variety of training backgrounds including medicine, engineering, statistics, public health, infectious disease, epidemiology, etc.

Center Fellow Citizenship Criteria

Research Fellows must be one of the following: U.S. citizen; permanent resident; pending permanent resident (applied for permanent residency and filed Form I-485 with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and have received authorization to legally remain in the U.S., and filed an Application for Employment Form I-765); E-3 (Specialty Occupation Worker); F-1 Visa (Student); G-4 Visa (Family member of Employee of Internal Organization and NATO); H1-B Visa (Temporary Worker in a Specialty Occupation); J-1 Visa (Exchange Visitor); O-1 Visa (Temporary Worker with Extraordinary Abilities in the Sciences); or TN Visa (NAFTA Professional). All Research Fellows must be able to meet requirements for 2-year residency in the United States.

Fellowship Qualifications

Research Fellows may not hold another fellowship award, although the institution may provide supplemental funding. Research Fellows may hold a title of instructor or similar due to their patient care responsibilities but must devote between 75 and 100% effort to research training. The named Research Fellow may have been a recipient of an AHA fellowship but may not hold an AHA affiliate fellowship or AHA Fellow-to-Faculty Transition Award at the same time as an AHA Strategically Focused Research Network fellowship.

Application Requirements

Interested applicants should email their CV as well as any questions about the program to Dr. Elaine Urbina Elaine.Urbina@cchmc.org. Additional application materials (3 letters of reference, personal statement, interview) will be requested after initial contact is made.  One fellow will be selected to start in July 2020, July 2021, and July 2022.