Summary:

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) regulates the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products. Our goal is to reduce the harm from all regulated tobacco products across the entire population, including: reducing the number of people who start to use tobacco products, encouraging more people to stop using these products, and reducing the adverse health impact for those who continue to use these products. CTP’s actions have significant public health and consumer protection impact and are among the most important issues faced by the Agency in its long and distinguished history.  

Ideal Candidate Statement:

The ideal candidate has a master’s or PhD in Statistics or Mathematics (with at least 6 hrs in statistics) and relevant experience in survey methodology. This includes the following:

• Experience in sample selection, questionnaire development, and overall implementation of a large-scale longitudinal survey
• Demonstrated ability and expertise in a wide range of methodologic issues including formation of survey weights and effects of changes to sampling criteria and mode of data collection over time
• Experience developing procedures to ensure the sample population of a longitudinal survey remains representative and effectively identifying approaches to reduce attrition over time
• Ability to creatively resolve issues arising during data collection using novel and/or cross-cutting statistical approaches as appropriate
• Experience in providing technical assistance to other professionals on the use of complex statistical and epidemiologic techniques, particularly in the context of longitudinal studies
• Written and oral communication experience either through recent scientific publications/presentations or internal reports that demonstrate technical prowess

Responsibilities/Job Duties:

• Provides guidance on methodological issues including impact from changes in mode of data collection, identification and development of survey weights, and effects of changes to sampling criteria, over time, in the context of a longitudinal study.
• Develops procedures to ensure the sample for the Population Assessment of Tobacco and health (PATH) study remains nationally represented and identifies effective approaches to reduce attrition.
• Provides technical assistance to other professionals on the use of statistical and epidemiologic techniques.
• Develops and/or reviews questionnaires, instructions, and schedules to ensure structural soundness and effectiveness in collecting priority information.
• Disseminates results of research projects in a wide range of venues including publications, peer reviewed journals, summaries, manuscripts, and special reports.

Qualifications:

Basic Requirements

A. Degree: that included 15 semester hours in statistics (or in mathematics and statistics, provided at least 6 semester hours were in statistics), and 9 additional semester hours in one or more of the following: physical or biological sciences, medicine, education, or engineering; or in the social sciences including demography, history, economics, social welfare, geography, international relations, social or cultural anthropology, health sociology, political science, public administration, psychology, etc. Credit toward meeting statistical course requirements should be given for courses in which 50 percent of the course content appears to be statistical methods, e.g., courses that included studies in research methods in psychology or economics such as tests and measurements or business cycles, or courses in methods of processing mass statistical data such as tabulating methods or electronic data processing.

or

B. Combination of education and experience — courses as shown in A above, plus appropriate experience or additional education. The experience should have included a full range of professional statistical work such as (a) sampling, (b) collecting, computing, and analyzing statistical data, and (c) applying statistical techniques such as measurement of central tendency, dispersion, skewness, sampling error, simple and multiple correlation, analysis of variance, and tests of significance.

and

Minimum Qualifications

Specialized Experience. Specialized experience is experience that equipped the applicant with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled.

• You must possess 1 year of specialized experience, equivalent to the GS-12 grade level in the Federal Service or public which includes, selecting statistical and epidemiologic methods, surveys and sample designs and identifying inconsistencies in collected data.

All qualification requirements must be met by 11:59 pm (Eastern Time) on 01/07/2022. If, after reviewing your resume and/or supporting documentation, a determination is made that you have inflated your responses when compared to your background information, you may be deemed ineligible, or your score may be adjusted to more accurately reflect your skills and abilities. You must continue to meet all requirements through the hiring process.