[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 221 (Monday, November 17, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 68447-68449]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-27018]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-15-15EC]


Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part of 
its continuing effort to reduce public burden, invites the general 
public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment 
on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by 
the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. To request more information on the 
below proposed project or to obtain a copy of the information 
collection plan and instruments, call 404-639-7570 or send comments to 
Leroy A. Richardson, 1600 Clifton Road, MS-D74, Atlanta, GA 30333 or 
send an email to [email protected].
    Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized 
and/or included in the request for Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) approval. Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed 
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of 
the functions of the agency, including whether the information shall 
have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of 
the burden of the proposed collection of information; (c) ways to 
enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be 
collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of 
information on respondents, including through the use of automated 
collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) 
estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation, 
maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information. Burden 
means the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by 
persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide information 
to or for a Federal agency. This includes the time needed to review 
instructions; to develop, acquire, install and utilize technology and 
systems for the purpose of collecting, validating and verifying 
information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and 
providing information; to train personnel and to be able to respond to 
a collection of information, to search data sources, to complete and 
review the collection of information; and to transmit or otherwise 
disclose the information. Written comments should be received within 60 
days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    Improving Organizational Management and Worker Behavior through 
Worksite Communication-- 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 1977) has the responsibility to 
conduct research relating to innovative methods, techniques, and 
approaches dealing with occupational safety and health problems.
    This research assesses best practices for communicating and 
employing a strategic health and safety management system (HSMS) to 
facilitate workers' health and safety behaviors, including ways that 
lateral communication from management influences worker perceptions and 
behaviors. Currently, ambivalence exists about how to strategically 
communicate aspects of an HSMS top-down in the mining industry. 
Research indicates that, to answer questions about effectively using an 
HSMS to improve safety, research needs to follow a sample of workplaces 
over time, measuring the introduction or utilization of an HSMS and 
then measuring outcomes of interest at the workplace level and at the 
worker-level too.
    Therefore, analyzing workers' perception of the organizational 
HSMS, leaders' implementation of the organizational HSMS, and 
communication gaps between these two entities, may provide more insight 
into the best, most feasible practices and approaches to worker H&S 
performance within a system. This project is initiating such an 
approach by implementing a series of multilevel intervention (MLI) case 
studies that assess the utility of a safety system that includes 
aspects of both safety management on the organizational level and 
behavior-based safety on the worker level. By studying these levels 
separately and introducing an intervention to bridge these two groups 
together to enhance safety, the communication practices within an HSMS 
may be enhanced.
    NIOSH requests OMB approval for a 3-year for a project that 
involves information collection and that seeks to empirically 
understand what HSMS communication practices are important for mine 
worker H&S and how those practices can be developed, implemented, and 
maintained over time via desired communication from mine site 
leadership. The following questions guide this study:
    What impact does the MLI communication model that was designed and 
implemented have on: (1) Workers' health/safety behaviors, including 
those that lower exposure to dust; (2) workers' perceptions of their 
organizations' values; and (3) changes in managers' strategic HSMS 
communication and implementation with workers to facilitate health/
safety performance, including those that lower exposure to dust.
    To answer the above questions, NIOSH researchers developed a 
multilevel intervention (MLI) that focuses on both management and 
workers' communication about and subsequent actions taken to reduce 
respirable dust exposure over time. This MLI will inform how leadership 
communicates to their employees and what affect(s) this communication 
has on individual behavior such as corrective dust actions taken by 
workers. By assessing the ongoing safety/health interactions between 
individual workers and their organizational capacities (i.e. levels of 
leadership and management of safety), and how these interactions 
influence and shape personal H&S performance, we can better understand 
what aspects of both systems need attention in a merged, more balanced 
and comprehensive system of health and safety management (DeJoy, 2005).
    Specifically, this project is using mine technology, the Helmet-
CAM, as a communication medium to help merge these two worksite 
systems. Previous research indicates that the use of information 
technology can enhance lateral and horizontal communication within 
organizations, showing support for using the Helmet-CAM in the current 
study (Hinds & Kiesler, 1995). NIOSH researchers can analyze what and 
how communication practices should be implemented to influence worker 
perceptions of their organizations' H&S values and how this impacts 
their subsequent H&S behavior. Eventually, the practices used to 
influence behavior related to this dust issue can be extrapolated to 
inform ways to

[[Page 68448]]

communicate about and manage additional health/safety problems within 
the industry via an HSMS as implemented by site leaders.
    The Helmet-CAM incorporates video footage and real-time dust 
measurements of workers while performing their job duties and tasks in 
various locations throughout the workday. This technology has proven to 
be a very viable assessment tool to provide a comparison of where and 
when miners are being exposed to their highest respirable dust 
concentrations. As a result, Helmet-CAM technology is being employed at 
many mines as a way to identify dust exposures of workers and to help 
reduce dust hazards in the environment. However, we do not yet know how 
mine site management is using, if at all, this technology to 
communicate with workers about their personal health and safety 
barriers and behaviors. Discussions about the tasks workers perform 
when exposure levels are high and what actions they can take to reduce 
their dust exposure may be valuable to the industry in helping advance 
the way engineering-control technology is used from a behavioral 
vantage point as well.
    The MLI is designed to help mine workers and organizational 
leadership work together, using the Helmet-CAM to bridge their 
communication efforts, to lower exposure to respirable dust among other 
H/S behaviors. Previous research (Yorio et al. 2014) identified three 
distinct areas that influence the relationship between the strategic 
HSMS and its overall success in implementing and encouraging worker 
behavior change: Worksite leadership, organizational values, and worker 
perceptions and interpretations of management. Data on these three 
contingencies are collected from the management and worker levels 
during three time points throughout a six-week intervention to assess 
the ongoing communication via the Helmet-CAM and effects of the 
communication on behavior. Data collection and analysis pertaining to 
these three areas may occur via a pre/post survey with workers and pre/
mid/post interviews/focus groups with workers and mine site leaders, 
some of which include dialogue around Helmet-CAM footage as provided by 
the workers who choose to participate.
    NIOSH proposes this intervention design at a minimum of three and 
no more than five industrial mineral metal/nonmetal mine sites. All of 
the data collection instruments have been used in previous studies to 
examine worker and leadership variables and factors. Therefore, NIOSH 
knows that the data collection instruments are valid and reliable to 
use in studying the worker and leader levels simultaneously, within the 
same mine. Industrial mineral sites will be recruited who have inquired 
interest in learning how to use the Helmet-CAM on their site and/or 
interest in improving their site wide communication efforts. Only a 
small sample of workers will participate at each mine site because of 
the time required for completion and to ensure the longitudinal data 
can be adequately collected over the six weeks. In other words, we 
would rather collect data multiple times with the same worker and have 
fewer participants than collect data from more workers but not have the 
ability to appropriately follow-up during the subsequent two visits.
    Data collection will take place with no more than 150 mine workers 
and 30 mine site leaders over three years. The respondents targeted for 
this study include any active mine worker and any active site leader at 
an industrial mineral metal/nonmetal mine site. It is estimated that a 
sample of up to 150 mine workers will participate in the intervention, 
which includes wearing the Helmet-CAM for a portion of their job tasks 
(no more than two hours total) during three time periods (when NIOSH is 
present during the field visit). In addition to wearing the Helmet-CAM, 
workers will be asked to complete a pre and post-test survey (~15 
minutes) and an interview during three time points throughout the study 
(~ 30 minutes). The interviews also will debrief Helmet-CAM footage 
with participants at various mining operations who have agreed to 
participate. It also is estimated that a sample of up to 30 mine site 
leaders will participate in interviews/focus groups about HSMS 
practices at the same mining operations which have agreed to 
participate.
    The interviews/focus groups also will occur three times during each 
of the NIOSH field visits and will take no more than 45 minutes each. 
All participants will be between the ages of 18 and 75, currently 
employed, and living in the United States. Participation will require 
no more than 4.5 hours of workers' time over the six-week intervention 
and no more than 2.5 hours of site leaders' time over the six-week 
intervention period.
    There is no cost to respondents other than their time.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                      Average
                                                     Number of       Number of      burden per     Total burden
      Type of respondent            Form name       respondents    responses per   response (in        hours
                                                                    respondent        hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mine Site Leaders/Managers....  Mine Recruitment              10               1            5/60               1
                                 Script.
                                Initial/Mid/Post              10               3           45/60              23
                                 HSMS interview
                                 or focus group.
Mine Worker...................  Individual Miner              50               1            5/60               4
                                 Recruitment
                                 Script.
                                Pre/Post Org                  50               2           15/60              25
                                 Perceptions
                                 Survey.
                                Wear Helmet-CAM               50               3               1             150
                                 during job
                                 cycle.
                                Pre/Mid/Post                  50               3           30/60              75
                                 Behavior and
                                 Helmet-CAM
                                 footage
                                 Interview.
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
    Total.....................  ................  ..............  ..............  ..............             278
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[[Page 68449]]

Leroy A. 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. 2014-27018 Filed 11-14-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P