[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 212 (Friday, November 1, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 65655-65656]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-26114]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[30Day-14-13UW]


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 
(404) 639-7570 or send an email to [email protected]. Send written comments 
to CDC Desk Officer, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC 
20503 or by fax to (202) 395-5806. Written comments should be received 
within 30 days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    Enhanced Utilization of Personal Dust Monitor Feedback--New--
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    NIOSH, under Public Law 91-596, Sections 20 and 22 (Section 20-22, 
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970) has the responsibility to 
conduct research relating to innovative methods, techniques, and 
approaches dealing with occupational safety and health problems.
    This research relates to occupational safety and health problems in 
the coal mining industry. Coal Workers' Pneumoconiosis (CWP) or ``Black 
Lung Disease,'' caused by miners' exposure to respirable coal mine 
dust, is the leading cause of death due to occupational illness among 
U.S. coal miners. Although the prevalence of CWP was steadily 
decreasing, more recent data from NIOSH's chest x-ray surveillance data 
suggests that the prevalence of this disease is on the rise once again.
    A Personal Dust Monitor (PDM) has become commercially available 
that provides miners with near real-time feedback on their exposure to 
respirable dust. If miners and mine managers know how to properly use 
the information provided by PDMs, they may be able to make adjustments 
to the work place and work procedures to try to reduce exposure to 
respirable dust. It is, therefore, important to study how, and under 
what circumstances, feedback from PDMs can be used to reduce respirable 
dust exposure and ultimately the incidence of Black Lung disease.
    The objectives of the project are (1) to test an intervention 
designed to help miners use PDM feedback more effectively to reduce 
their exposure to respirable dust and (2) to document specific examples 
of ways that miners can use PDM feedback to alter their behaviors to 
decrease their exposure to respirable dust while working underground.
    NIOSH proposes an intervention to lower miners' respirable dust 
exposure levels by involving them in the interpretation of PDM feedback 
and the discussion of ways to change their behaviors to decrease 
exposure to respirable dust. Upon completion of a pilot test, four 
underground coal mines will be involved in this research study. Miners 
who wear PDMs will be assigned to two groups, an experimental group and 
a control group. An effort will be made to recruit two mines that are 
currently using PDMs and two mines that have not used PDMs in the past. 
Large mines will be contacted for participation to make sure that there 
will be enough individuals wearing PDMs to create both an experimental 
group and a control group and to allow participants in the experimental 
group to form sub-groups during the weekly meetings based on their job 
classification. The PDM feedback discussions will be held weekly during 
the course of the six-week intervention period. Each session is 
expected to last for 45 minutes (15 minutes to fill out the worksheet 
and 30 minutes for the discussion). To control for unintended 
``discussion'' between the control and experimental groups, selection 
of mine sites will favor mines where separate portals are used or where 
sister mines within the same company are located near one another.
    For miners in the experimental group, data will be collected 
multiple times during the six-week intervention period. For miners in 
the control group, data will only be collected at the beginning and end 
of the intervention period. The assessment tools include: Surveys, 
worksheets, and structured interviews.
    The experimental groups will receive the intervention which will 
include (1) an introduction to the project, (2) a pre-test concerning 
miners' attitude, knowledge, and behaviors toward PDM use, (3) a six-
week intervention where PDM feedback is discussed in weekly meetings 
and worksheets are collected from mine personnel about their behaviors 
the previous week, and (4) a post-test concerning miners' attitude, 
knowledge, and behaviors toward PDM use and interviews of participants 
to identify changes in behaviors that were implemented to reduce 
respirable dust exposure. The control group will wear their PDM units 
when they are working underground but will not participate in weekly 
meetings. They will only complete the pre- and post-test and be 
interviewed upon completion of the intervention period.
    The operators at each mine will provide daily respirable coal mine 
dust exposures levels (as measured by their PDMs) for all of the 
participating miners. They will provide their PDM output at the end of 
each participating miners' shift each day during the intervention for a 
total of 42 days. In addition, they will provide output for each 
participant for the three days prior to the intervention to establish a 
baseline measure. Therefore, NIOSH researchers will receive a total of 
45 dust output readings for each participant. There is already a 
software program in place that electronically records these exposure 
levels and exports them to a spreadsheet that each mine site can open 
on a computer that has the appropriate software. It is estimated it 
will take no more than 5 minutes for the mine operator to remove any 
identifying information from the excel file and just send NIOSH the PDM 
number and dust output associated with that PDM in a new excel file.
    It is estimated that across the 1 pilot mine and 4 intervention 
mines, up to 209 respondents will be surveyed; up to 109 will complete 
weekly worksheets; up to 49 respondents will be interviewed; and we 
will receive PDM output from up to 209 respondents. An exact number of 
respondents are unavailable at this time because the mine sites have 
not been selected.
    After all of the information has been gathered, a variety of 
statistical and qualitative analyses will be conducted on the data to 
obtain conclusions with respect to miners' utilization of PDM feedback. 
The results from these analyses will be presented in a report 
describing what methods encourage miners to make behavior changes in 
response to their PDM output and what behavior changes work best at 
reducing miners' exposure to respirable dust. If the intervention is 
successful in reducing respirable coal mine dust exposure, details of 
the intervention

[[Page 65656]]

will be more widely disseminated to coal mine operators so they can 
implement similar discussion groups at their mines.
    There is no cost to respondents other than their time. The total 
estimated annualized burden hours are 798.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                      Average
                                                                     Number of       Number of      burden per
          Type of respondents                   Form name           respondents   responses  per   response  (in
                                                                                     respondent       hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mine Safety Operators.................  Script for Phone and/or                5               1            5/60
                                         Email Mine Recruitment
                                         Script.
Individual Miners from Experimental     Recruitment Script for               209               1            3/60
 and Control Groups.                     Individual Miners.
Experimental Groups (from five          Week 1 PDM Pre-Survey...             109               1           15/60
 different mines).
                                        Week 2 Participant                   109               1           15/60
                                         Worksheet.
                                        Week 3-5 Participant                 327               3           15/60
                                         Worksheets.
                                        Week 6 PDM Post-Survey..             109               1           15/60
                                        Facilitator Weekly                   109               6           30/60
                                         Meeting Manual.
                                        Interview Guide for                   29               1               1
                                         Miners' Utilization of
                                         PDM Feedback.
Mine Safety Operators for Experimental  Daily respirable coal                  5              45            5/60
 Groups (from five different mines).     mine dust exposure data.
Mine Safety Operators for Control       ........................               4              45            5/60
 Groups (from four different mines).
Control Groups (from four different     Week 1 PDM Pre-Survey...             100               1           15/60
 mines).
                                        Week 6 PDM Post-Survey..             100               1           15/60
                                        Interview Guide for                   20               1               1
                                         Miners' Utilization of
                                         PDM Feedback.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


LeRoy Richardson,
Chief, Information Collection Review Office, Office of Scientific 
Integrity, Office of the Associate Director for Science, Office of the 
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2013-26114 Filed 10-31-13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P