DOI: 10.3886/e100944v2
title: Global Health Jobs Analysis

description: Objective<br>To characterize and gain insight into the global health job market by collecting and analyzing data on global health vacancy postings over a 6-month period.<br><br>Summary<br>This project, a joint effort between the Communications Committee and the Global Health Connections Working Group of the International Health Section, collected data on publicly posted job vacancies with the aim of giving the Section’s students and aspiring global health professionals insight into the current global health job market. As global health graduate programs increase in number and matriculate more students, understanding the range of available jobs and their requirements for applicants is vital for professionals who desire to enter this highly competitive field. Data collected on job vacancies include employer, position title, location, opening and closing dates, education level required, years of experience required, region and/or technical area of focus, and language skills required or preferred.<br><br>For more information, visit https://aphaih.org/ghjobs_analysis/.
description: other~~In this cross-sectional study, data was collected from global health job vacancies posted to web-based, open (non-subscription) job boards, employment email listservs for global health and development, and global health organizations and consulting firms over a six-month period from November 2015 to May 2016. Vacancy descriptions were analyzed to characterize the most common types, levels, and required skills and experience of positions  in the global health job market.<br><br>Job samples included in the master data set (S1) consisted of one posted job vacancy. A global health vacancy was defined as one soliciting applications for a paid non-internship position working with a project, program, or consultancy focused on a goal directly addressing human health. Positions with development programs not focused on health (e.g., agriculture, animal husbandry, microfinance, democracy/governance, and security), as well as positions only open to nationals from a particular country, were excluded. Both full- and part-time positions were included. We collected 1,254 total vacancy descriptions. Of these, 47 internships, unpaid (volunteer) positions, or positions for work not related to health were excluded. Of the remaining 1,207 vacancies, 200 duplicate positions were eliminated, resulting in 1,007 unique global health vacancies. <br><br>The data set for quantitative analysis (S2) was created by entering information on select characteristics of S1 into a spreadsheet. S2 data taken directly from each vacancy description included employer, position title, physical location of position, opening and closing dates (if applicable), education level required and preferred (for private- and nonprofit-sector vacancies), minimum number of years of overall professional experience and directly related experience required (for private- and nonprofit-sector vacancies), lowest and highest GS level (for US federal government vacancies), whether the position is term or permanent (for U.S. federal government vacancies), country or region of focus, whether proficiency in a second (non-English) language was required or preferred, up to two non-English languages desired, and whether overseas experience was required or preferred. For each vacancy, the two predominant areas of technical expertise required for the position were identified. After de-duplication, a unique alphanumeric ID was assigned, and private- and non-profit vacancies were classified by level as practicing clinician (clinical care or training responsibilities specified in vacancy announcement), entry-level (no more than three years of experience and no specialized technical knowledge or experience required), mid-level (two to five years of experience with some specialized technical knowledge or experience required), managerial ("manager" in position title and/or at least three years of project/program management experience required, plus financial, training, strategic planning, operations, or personnel management responsibilities specified in the vacancy announcement), technical/subject matter expert (at least two years of specialized experience required, plus consultative or training responsibilities, or management of technical aspects of projects/programs, specified in the announcement) or directorial ("director," "chief of party," "country representative," or "president" in position title) according to job title, description, and the minimum number of years of experience required.<br>
description: Paid jobs in global health open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents
description: The qualitative data set (S3) was generated by simple randomized sampling of S1 without replacement. A sample subset to master dataset percentage of 20% was chosen to avoid both time- and sector-based biases that could have been unintentionally introduced. The chosen method is in line with the premise that a sufficiently large, uniformly randomized sample set allows for analytic generalizability and case-to-case transfer of a job-seeker’s conceptual understanding of job vacancies; specifically, the requirements and qualifications that often categorize job level and function. In addition to simple randomized sampling that was used in the final qualitative analysis, preliminary data that included a non-randomized sample of approximately 25% of the samples collected prior to February 2015 was used as a training and calibration set. This dataset was used to develop a coding methodology and taxonomy for thematic analysis. <br><br>S3 were generated from the master data set (S1) by copying the text of each vacancy description (S1) into a plain text editor to remove any formatting and saving the description to the project’s Google Drive as a plain text file. S3 files were saved with the email subject heading of S1 for organizational and reference purposes. <br>