Contract Duration: 3.5 months
Work effort: Part-time (approximately FTE 0.25)
1. Purpose of the contract
This APW is to support WHO cancer team organize an Assessment Tool (AT) designed to facilitate country support related to WHO cancer initiatives as well as imPACT Review missions and to assist and advance related workstreams. A robust metrics approach in needed to facilitate this work to assist analyses to identify what country-specific factors may be contributing to suboptimal care delivery as measured by national-level indicators. This work is being developed within the context of the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative (GBCI) with the plan to establish methodology that can be applied in parallel to cancer management in the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer (GICC) and the Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative (CCEI).
To date, our GBCI team has developed an evidence-based framework to link existing WHO survey questions to the WHO GBCI 3-pillar Universal Patient Pathway. This framework maps AT questions to specific associated health systems metrics. The purpose of this APW is to complete that work.
For these next steps, the incumbent will:
- Refine a generic fishbone analysis framework based on the GBCI Patient Pathway and updated situational questions to define potential causes of suboptimal early detection and treatment outcomes;
- Link GBCI Patient Pathway metrics to national indicators (Stage/time to diagnosis/mortality & survival rates) to explain poor indicator performance at a national level and identify potential facility-level interventions;
- Validate the metric methodology using known data taken from pre-existing country situation analyses;
- Identify additional breast cancer questions to provide a comprehensive snapshot of early detection and treatment functionality;
- Develop a report summarizing the findings.
2. Background
The global burden of cancer is substantial and growing. Nearly one in six deaths globally is due to cancer, with an estimated 20 million new cancer cases and more than 10 million new cancer deaths in 2020. Yet, the current public health response has been inadequate to control the disease burden with many low- and middle-income countries having insufficient capacity to provide high quality, accessible cancer programmes. This threatens the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly target 3.4 on premature mortality reduction from noncommunicable diseases including cancer and 3.8 on achieving universal health coverage (UHC) including financial risk protection and equitable access to quality essential health-care services. Setting priorities, investing wisely and providing access to cancer services through UHC can save more than 7 million lives before 2030 as articulated in 2020 WHO Report on cancer (Global public health good (GPHG) #638).
Over the past decade, there has been a steady escalation in the recognition of breast cancer as a public health priority through multiple political declarations. In response to the World Health Assembly Resolution 70.12, WHO has been mandated to strengthen its normative work and launched three global cancer initiatives to accelerate country level action and impact. All three initiatives are expanding in reach and the Global Breast Cancer Initiative, the newly introduced initiative in March 2021, is expected to be implemented in all WHO regions over the next year. These global initiatives are providing a robust platform for strengthening cancer control and accelerate action in NCDs more broadly.
To support Member States, WHO is developing an interactive suite of technical products that allows national planners to prioritize and cost cancer control programmes, to implement evidence-based public health and clinical programmes, to support procurement of essential medicines and other health products and to strengthen workforce training programmes. This integrated approach will support strategic investment towards the achievement of UHC.
3. Work to be performed and schedule of payment
Payments will be made upon successful completion and submission of the deliverables below.
Deliverables
Objective 1: Organize and refine fishbone analytic framework based on the GBCI Patient Pathway at national and facility levels (5 days)
Outputs:
- Refine fishbone analysis approach for 3 GBCI pillars at national level (2 days)
- Create fishbone analysis approach at facility level (2 days)
- Examine applicability of GBCI fishbone analysis to GICC and CCEI (1 day)
Objective 2: Validate the metric methodology using known country level data (5 days)
Outputs:
- Map assessment questions to the patient pathway (2 days)
- Re-validate questions with existing data (2 days)
- Examine applicability of validation methodology to GICC and CCEI (1 day)
Objective 3: Identify additional assessment tool questions (8 days)
Outputs:
- Write new questions to distinguish different country-level environments for breast cancer (2 days)
- Examine current status of existing assessment tool for childhood cancer / GICC (1 day)
- Provide a needs assessment for parallel assessment in cervical cancer treatment / CCEI (2 days)
- Write summary report (3 days)
4. Specific requirements
Qualifications required:
- University degree in life sciences
- Postgraduate degree (Masters or PhD) in relevant field is desirable
Experience required:
- Minimum 5 years’ experience in public health programmes, particularly in cancer control
- Experience in carrying out situation analyses at country level, preferably in breast cancer
Skills / Technical skills and knowledge:
- Knowledge of mixed methods research
- Experience in scientific publication
Language requirements:
- English – Expert level
5. Place of assignment
All work under this contract will be home-based and carried out at the service provider’s usual place of residence.
6. Travel
No travel is anticipated.
7. Duration and Remuneration (exclusive of per diem, travel costs or other expenses)
The service provider will be remunerated at a rate that is commensurate with his/her experience based on the UN common salary scale. The expected start date is 20 September 2021 (or as soon as reasonably possible).
Start date: 20/09/2021
End date: 31/12/2021
Total duration: 3.5 months
8. Conditions
We will close the application on Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 21h00 (Central European Summer Time); thus, only applications received before that will be considered. Kindly send your CV and a quote for the proposed work to the following e-mail address andersonb@who.int