Job Description : Psychometrician - Digital Health Measurement Science- Digital Health R&D Oncology

Digital health, the point at which healthcare, technology, data and analytics converge, is the subject of great promise, with the World Health Organization trusting it has the potential to improve health for everyone. At AstraZeneca, we’ve been working hard to make this a reality, with the years of experience we have accumulated enabling us to now embed digital health at scale across R&D. To achieve our goal of improving patient experience and outcomes AstraZeneca has Digital Health as one of top 4 strategic priorities for the company, details on digital health strategy can be found here .Oncology is the largest therapeutic area within AstraZeneca and second highest cause of death globally, with AstraZeneca’s ambition to eliminate cancer as a cause of death.

A Senior Scientist in the Digital Health Measurement Science group will serve as a subject matter authority regarding the use of clinical outcomes assessments (COA) such as traditional survey-like instruments using rating or ranking scales and novel sensor/wearable data capture instruments to inform identification and/or evaluation of symptoms, function, health-related quality of life, or other patient-centric concept of clinical benefit throughout the oncology drug development lifecycle. The Scientist will be responsible for providing quantitative measurement expertise for the development and execution of patient-centered measurement strategy and dissemination of its findings to key partners, such as R&D global and/or cross-functional teams, regulators, payers, healthcare professionals and most meaningfully patients, in support of more efficient identification of treatment benefits vs harms in Oncology. This includes but is not limited to: gap analyses and solution development to optimize COA measurement performance, development and conduct of analysis plans for COA endpoints according to the estimand framework, audience-relevant COA data interpretation and visualization. The Scientist should be published as a specialist within own area of specialization.

Typical Accountabilities

• Serves as a subject matter authority in applying psychometrics/clinimetrics to generate evidence of patients’ experience with treatment throughout the oncology drug development lifecycle. (e.g. psychometric performance of the instrument, sensitivity/specificity of signal detection, construction of novel endpoints according to the estimand framework to characterize disease progression, or tolerability).
• Designs, conducts and interpret and/or supervises functional service provider(s) for psychometrics/clinimetrics or statistical analyses for the validation of clinical outcomes assessments (COA) (traditional survey-like instruments or novel sensors/wearables) and their implementation in clinical trials including: define data collection, develop analyses strategy, manipulates and validates data files, scoring, test selection, and analyses.
• Develops, inspects, and/or mines and transforms models for COA data interpretation
• Establish fit-for-purpose visualization of COA data
• Analyze both structured and unstructured/qualitative data, develop plan for primary, exploratory and/or investigation analyses to advise concept evolution overtime, predictive forecasting or classification, etc.
• Prepare, review, and publish scientific reports, internal/ conference presentations, publications, regulatory dossiers reflecting ongoing or completed work
• Plan and conduct meetings with content specialists (internal, health authorities) for endpoint performance

Essential

• Combination of academic training and practical experience in measurement research. This may consist of:
• Doctoral degree in a relevant field such as, but not limited to industrial-organizational (I/O) Psychology, Testing and Measurement, Psychometrics, Statistics, Data Science, or related field plus three years practical experience
• Master’s degree in a related subject area (as noted above), plus five years practical experience
• Significant experience using Classical Test Theory and Rasch analyses for performance assessment.
• Conceptual, analytical and critical thinking
• Creative, innovative, solution-focused
• Curious, accepts new ways of problem solving, new ideas, new ways of working
• Strong communication skills and ability to establish relationships
• Ability to serve as “translator” between scientific problems to data science solutions
• Ability to apply expertise to sophisticated problems, problem solving and with a quality focus

Desirable

• Programming in R and visualization in R studio and interactive applications
• Experience with large dataset and real world data
• Familiarity with CDISC data standards and applying FAIR principles for data management
• Conducting of outcomes research studies, and the communication of study findings to internal and external audiences
• Expertise and experience with the development, psychometric evaluation and selection of PRO instruments used in clinical studies
• Experience in conducting outcomes research in different geographic regions and interacting with regulator and policy-makers
• Diligence – attention to detail and ability to lead a program of concurrent activities
• Resilience – ability to overcome and empower others in the face of a changing environment

Date Posted

Closing Date

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity.  We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills.  We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.  We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics.  We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.