[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 100 (Tuesday, May 26, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 30052-30053]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-12599]


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CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY COMMISSION


Data Sources and Consumer Product-Related Incident Information; 
Notice of Hearing

AGENCY: Consumer Product Safety Commission.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (``CPSC,'' 
``Commission,'' or ``we'') will conduct a public hearing to receive 
information from all interested parties about sources of consumer 
product-related incident information that could be used to inform the 
Commission's hazard identification, risk management, and regulatory 
enforcement work. We invite participation by members of the public.

DATES: The hearing will begin at 1 p.m. on June 24, 2015, and will 
conclude the same day. Requests to make oral presentations and texts of 
oral presentations must be received no later than 5 p.m. Eastern 
Daylight Time (EDT) on June 17, 2015.

ADDRESSES: The hearing will be in the Hearing Room, 4th Floor of the 
Bethesda Towers Building, 4330 East-West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814. 
Requests to make oral presentations and texts of oral presentations 
should be captioned ``Data Sources and Consumer Product-Related 
Incident Information'' and sent by electronic mail (email) to: [email protected], or mailed or delivered to the Office of the Secretary, 
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 4330 East-West Highway, Room 
820, Bethesda, MD 20814; telephone (301) 504-7923.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: For information about the hearing, or to 
request an opportunity to make an oral presentation, please send an 
email, call, or write Todd A. Stevenson, Office of the Secretary, U.S. 
Consumer Product Safety Commission, 4330 East-West Highway, Bethesda, 
MD 20814; email:

[[Page 30053]]

[email protected]; telephone: (301) 504-7923; facsimile: (301) 504-0127.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Background

    The CPSC collects and analyzes data on consumer-product related 
injuries and deaths, from products under CPSC's jurisdiction, to 
identify consumer product-related hazards for agency action. A large 
portion of CPSC's injury information is collected through CPSC's 
National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (``NEISS''). NEISS is 
comprised of information coded from hospital emergency department 
records from a sample of hospitals in the United States. Because the 
member hospitals are part of a statistical sample, the 400,000 product-
related injury reports submitted each year, along with an additional 
350,000 non-CPSC injury reports used by other federal agencies, can be 
projected nationally. Although detailed product information or 
manufacturer names often are not available, NEISS does support special 
studies of selected product or hazard scenarios. NEISS data allow 
assessment of injury trends across time and provide information, such 
as age, gender, body part injured, and diagnosis, about those injured. 
NEISS data are available to the public for analysis. Although NEISS 
data are not a source of product related fatalities or non-emergency 
department treated injuries, their timely collection does afford CPSC 
staff an insight to potential product-related emerging hazards.
    NEISS data are supplemented by reports collected through other 
channels, such as saferproducts.gov and the CPSC Hotline. CPSC staff 
reviews consumer-product related deaths, injuries and near-misses 
(events that did not result in an injury but had the potential to do 
so) by collecting and processing more than 40,000 anecdotal incident 
reports annually. Incident report sources include consumers, medical 
examiners, coroners, death certificates, health care professionals, 
state and federal government agencies, manufacturers, retailers, and 
news clips. These incident reports inform the work of CPSC staff to 
identify and reduce unreasonable consumer product-related risks.
    The form and information content of incident reports vary across 
sources. News clips report more severe incidents such as carbon 
monoxide poisonings from generators and consumer product-related 
children's fatalities. The 6,000 clips are timely and are a valuable 
source of information that consumers or health officials may not 
report. The 5,000 reports that CPSC purchases from coroners and medical 
examiners provide information about an array of fatal events, including 
those associated with off-road vehicles, furniture tip-overs, and 
product ingestions. Reports from death certificates purchased from 
state vital records departments provide similar information but there 
can be a time lag in the submission of these reports to CPSC.
    Good decision making requires high-quality data. The reports of 
greatest value to CPSC staff for identifying potential emerging hazards 
and informing risk mitigation decisions include information about the 
victim (e.g. name, age, gender, address) or submitter (e.g. name, 
address) that would allow CPSC investigators to make contact for 
further investigation. These reports should also describe the incident 
scenario or hazard pattern that makes it apparent why there would be a 
risk of harm, describe the severity of any injuries that occurred and 
the date of the incident, and include a description of the product, 
including the manufacturer and model.

II. The Hearing

    Through this notice, the Commission invites the public to provide 
information on how other organizations, domestic and international, use 
the data and information collected by CPSC and how the CPSC might 
enhance the quality, accessibility, utility, and usability of its data 
and information.
    The Commission also invites the public to provide information on 
other sources of consumer product-related injury and fatality 
information that contain the information associated with high-quality 
data. The most helpful input will include a discussion of the source's 
data quality, format, and information content and how the source might 
advance CPSC staff's work to maximize the quality and information 
content of incident reports available to inform the agency's hazard 
identification, risk mitigation, and regulatory enforcement work.
    The Commission also invites the public to provide information 
regarding industry or other best practices and other successful 
substantive and technological approaches including but not limited to 
data collection, data processing, and data format.
    In discussing the CPSC's data, presenters should recognize that the 
CPSC is faced with the challenge of distinguishing consumer product-
related incidents that pose a risk of harm or potential risk of harm 
from those that do not meet customer expectations. This challenge 
informs the CPSC's approach to its data and many of the complexities 
associated with it.
    Requests to make oral presentations and texts of oral presentations 
should be captioned ``Data Sources and Consumer Product-Related 
Incident Information'' and sent by electronic mail (email) to: [email protected], or mailed or delivered to the Office of the Secretary, 
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 4330 East-West Highway, Room 
820, Bethesda, MD 20814; telephone (301) 504-7923; facsimile (301) 504-
0127. Requests to make oral presentations and texts of oral 
presentations must be received no later than 5 p.m. Eastern Daylight 
Time (EDT) on June 17, 2015. All submissions received may be posted 
without change, including any personal identifiers, contact 
information, or other personal information. Presentations will be 
limited to approximately 10 minutes. The Commission reserves the right 
to impose further time limitations on all presentations and further 
restrictions to avoid duplication of presentations.

    Dated: May 20, 2015.
Todd A. Stevenson,
Secretary, Consumer Product Safety Commission.
[FR Doc. 2015-12599 Filed 5-22-15; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6355-01-P