[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 183 (Tuesday, September 22, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 57189-57190]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-24006]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention


Statement of Organization, Functions, and Delegations of 
Authority

    Part C (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) of the 
Statement of Organization, Functions, and Delegations of Authority of 
the Department of Health and Human Services (45 FR 67772-76, dated 
October 14, 1980, and corrected at 45 FR 69296, October 20, 1980, as 
amended most recently at 80 FR 34643-34644, dated June 6, 2015) is 
amended to reflect the reorganization of the National Institute for 
Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention.
    Section C-B, Organization and Functions, is hereby amended as 
follows:
    Delete in its entirety the title and function statements for the 
Division of Respiratory Disease Studies (CCH) and insert the following:
    Respiratory Health Division (CCH). The Respiratory Health Division 
(RHD) seeks to advance protection against work-related hazards and 
exposures that cause or contribute to respiratory illness, injury, and 
death and to promote workplace-based interventions that improve 
respiratory health. To accomplish its mission, the Division gathers and 
synthesizes information, makes recommendations, and delivers products 
and services to a range of stakeholders, including partners able to 
effect prevention. Specifically, RHD: (1) Prevents work-related 
respiratory disease and improves workers' respiratory health by 
generating new knowledge and transferring that knowledge into practice; 
(2) plans, designs, and conducts a national research program relevant 
to preventing occupational respiratory disease and optimizing workers' 
respiratory health; (3) upon request, conducts hazard evaluations and 
provides technical assistance to address challenges, including emerging 
issues, in occupational respiratory disease; (4) plans, designs, and 
conducts a national surveillance program for occupational and work-
related respiratory disease; (5) communicates study findings to prevent 
occupational respiratory disease and optimize workers' respiratory 
health, and evaluates the effectiveness of these communications; (6) 
administers a program of legislatively mandated medical monitoring 
services for coal miners under the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act 
of 1977; and (7) provides rewarding educational and training 
opportunities in occupational and work-related respiratory disease 
prevention to visiting scientists, Epidemiologic Investigations Service 
Officers, fellows, residents, interns, students and others through a 
variety of temporary assignments in various Division activities.
    Office of the Director (CCH1). Directs and manages the operations 
of the Respiratory Health Division.
    Field Studies Branch (CCHB). (1) Plans, designs, and conducts 
short- and long-term field investigations relevant to preventing 
occupational respiratory diseases and optimizing workers' respiratory 
health; (2) responds to requests for health hazard evaluations and 
technical assistance relevant to occupational respiratory disease; (3) 
conducts morbidity and mortality studies relating to occupational 
respiratory diseases in selected worker populations and the general 
population in order to identify causal agents and other risk factors, 
quantify exposure effect relationships, and evaluate prevalence and 
severity of specific respiratory diseases; (4) conducts environmental 
studies, medical test evaluations, industrial hygiene research, 
laboratory research, demonstrations of workplace exposures and 
controls, and studies the challenges created by new technologies; (5) 
provides statistical design and implements data analysis and 
verification for Division research projects; and (6) develops and 
evaluates research methods of data collection, processing, and 
statistical analysis that are relevant to the Division mission, 
including medical tests, sampling approaches and equipment, sample 
analyses, exposure and dose assessment and modeling (including dermal 
exposure), bioavailability of exposures, biomarkers of exposure and 
health effects, and protective measures.

[[Page 57190]]

    Surveillance Branch (CCHD). (1) Collects, analyzes, and 
disseminates accurate and timely health and hazard information related 
to occupational respiratory diseases and workers' respiratory health, 
and collaborates in the establishment and analysis of health 
surveillance systems at the national and state level in order to: (a) 
provide information relating to overall incidence, prevalence, 
mortality, and impact of occupational respiratory diseases and workers' 
respiratory health; (b) describe the occurrence of specific diseases 
with regard to occupation, industry, exposures, geography, demographic 
characteristics, temporal trends, and other relevant factors for which 
information is available; (c) describe the distribution and trends in 
occupational exposure to agents responsible for respiratory diseases; 
(d) identify emerging risks for respiratory disease; (e) assess racial/
ethnic and other disparities in the occurrence of occupational 
respiratory diseases and occupational exposures to agents responsible 
for respiratory diseases; and (f) evaluate impact of interventions, 
policies, and program activities on the occurrence of occupational 
respiratory disease; (2) synthesizes data to frame recommendations for 
priority setting, hypothesis generation, and improved methods for data 
collection; (3) disseminates information through development and 
publication of timely information and reports describing workplace 
hazards and exposures and work-related occupational lung diseases, and 
application of communication science, media principles, and web design 
to enhance access to and use of data and information; (4) develops and 
evaluates innovative surveillance methods; (5) coordinates with other 
Federal agencies, promulgates rules, and implements programs as 
authorized by the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 and its 
subsequent amendments, to provide for the collection and reporting of 
health and hazard surveillance data related to occupational respiratory 
diseases in coal miners, including planning, coordinating, and 
processing the medical examinations provided for miners, operating an 
approval program for participating medical facilities and physicians, 
and evaluating and approving employer programs for the examination of 
miners in accordance with published regulations; (6) provides technical 
assistance and recommendations concerning medical screening and health 
surveillance of workers exposed to respiratory hazards in the 
workplace, including administering a national program of spirometry 
training, providing training and testing on the classification of 
radiographs for the pneumoconioses, and collaborating with national 
(e.g., American College of Radiology, American Thoracic Society) and 
international (e.g., International Labour Organization) groups to 
develop and improve occupational respiratory disease medical 
surveillance methods; and (7) establishes collaborations to identify, 
support, and evaluate interventions designed to improve respiratory 
health in the workplace.

James Seligman,
Acting Chief Operating Officer, Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2015-24006 Filed 9-21-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-18-P