[Federal Register Volume 65, Number 221 (Wednesday, November 15, 2000)]
[Notices]
[Pages 69021-69022]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 00-29259]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[30DAY-03-01]


Agency Forms Undergoing Paperwork Reduction Act Review

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a 
list of information collection requests under review by the Office of 
Management and Budget (OMB) in compliance with the Paperwork Reduction 
Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). To request a copy of these requests, call 
the CDC Reports Clearance Officer at (404) 639-7090. Send written 
comments to CDC, Desk Officer; Human Resources and Housing Branch, New 
Executive Office Building, Room 10235; Washington, DC 20503. Written 
comments should be received within 30 days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    A Research Program to Develop Optimal NIOSH Alerts for Occupational 
Safety and Health--New--The mission of the National Institute of 
Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is to promote safety and health 
at work for all people through research and prevention. The Alert is 
one of the primary publications by which NIOSH communicates health and 
safety recommendations to at-risk workers. The Alert is mailed to 
workers affected by a particular health or safety hazard and contains 
information about the nature of the hazard, as well as recommendations 
for avoiding or controlling it. Despite the important role of the Alert 
in conveying health and safety information to workers, these 
publications have not been routinely pretested and evaluated for 
effectiveness. Therefore, the degree to which the NIOSH Alerts actually 
produce risk awareness, as well as comprehension, acceptance and use of 
the recommended health and safety measures, is unknown.
    NIOSH proposes to apply recent theoretical advances in 
communication research to the development of NIOSH Alerts in order to 
ensure maximal effectiveness in conveying health and safety information 
to workers. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) is a communication 
theory that has received much empirical support. During the past year, 
an initial test (still in progress) was conducted to compare a standard 
Alert to an Alert with revised content and format based on the 
postulates of the ELM. Although this initial study will be informative, 
much additional research of this nature is necessary to gain an 
understanding of the communication variables that contribute to high 
levels of worker awareness, comprehension, acceptance, and use of 
safety recommendations.
    According to the ELM, the greatest impact on long-term health/
safety attitudes and behaviors should occur when workers are motivated 
and able to elaborate upon a message, and when a message contains 
strong arguments. Therefore, the current investigation aims to (1) 
examine variables that will increase level of message-related 
elaboration and (2) create messages that contain strong arguments. The 
effectiveness of the standard version of the Alert for Preventing 
Injuries and Deaths from Skid-Steer Loaders will be compared with 
revised versions of this Alert that incorporate variables known to 
increase message elaboration and strong arguments selected through 
pretesting. Specifically, the revised Alerts will use high imagery 
language to increase message elaboration. After the initial messages 
are developed, they will be pretested using a sample of 60 farmers and 
60 West Virginia University Agricultural Sciences students. Following 
this pretesting phase, data will be gathered from (1) 300 volunteer 
farmers who attend an on-site testing and (2) a national random sample 
of 300 farmers, and (3) 600 West Virginia University Agricultural 
Science students. In each of these cases, participants will be randomly 
assigned to receive either a standard or revised version of the Alert, 
and the effect of the different Alert formats on safety attitudes and 
behaviors will be assessed.
    Data collected in this investigation should further our 
understanding of the variables that increase effectiveness in 
communicating health and safety information to workers. By continuing 
to systematically apply postulates of the ELM to the design of the 
Alerts, it should become possible to develop a standard communication 
template to use in future NIOSH publications. The total estimated 
annualized burden is 660 hours.

[[Page 69022]]



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                                                                                      No.  of      Avg. burden/
                       Type of respondent                             No. of        responses/     response  (in
                                                                    respondents     respondent         hrs.)
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Farmers (pretesting)............................................              60               1              .5
Student (pretesting)............................................              60               1              .5
Farmers.........................................................             300               1            .333
Farmers.........................................................             300               2            .333
Students........................................................             600               1              .5
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    Dated: November 8, 2000.
Nancy Cheal,
Acting Associate Director for Policy, Planning and Evaluation, Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
[FR Doc. 00-29259 Filed 11-14-00; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P