[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 160 (Monday, August 19, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 42920-42921]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-17782]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
[Docket No. CDC-2019-0068; NIOSH-324]
State-Based Occupational Health Surveillance; Request for
Information and Meeting Notice
AGENCY: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, HHS.
ACTION: Notice of public teleconference meeting and request for
information.
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SUMMARY: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH), within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),
announces a public teleconference meeting and an opportunity to comment
on funding mechanisms and other considerations for state-based
occupational health surveillance.
DATES: Comments must be received October 18, 2019. The public
teleconference meeting will be held on Monday, September 16, 2019, 2
p.m. to 4 p.m. EST, or after the last public commenter in attendance
has spoken, whichever occurs first. The public meeting will be held as
a web-based teleconference available by remote access.
ADDRESSES: You may submit written comments, identified by docket
numbers CDC-2019-0068 and NIOSH-324, by either of the following two
methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov
Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
Mail: National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health, NIOSH Docket Office, 1090 Tusculum Avenue, MS C-34, Cincinnati,
Ohio 45226-1998.
Instructions: All information received in response to this notice
must include the agency name and docket number [CDC-2019-0068; NIOSH-
324]. All relevant comments received will be posted without change to
http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information
provided.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kerry Souza, 395 E St SW, Washington,
DC 20004; phone: 202-245-0639 (not a toll free number); email:
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Request for Information
State health agencies have a critical role in the identification
and prevention of occupational illnesses and injuries. NIOSH has
supported state agencies (primarily departments of public health and,
in some cases, departments of labor) since the 1970s, through a
combination of funding and technical assistance.\1\ Since that time,
NIOSH has supported states to build capacity in occupational safety and
health, ranging from the development of case-based surveillance to
creating focused public health interventions addressing the
occupational health needs of higher risk populations. The work of these
state programs exemplifies the concept of ``information for action'' by
ensuring that collection, analysis, interpretation, and dissemination
of occupational health data are linked to prevention and control
activities. Numerous examples of these successes can be found in the
published literature, in state reports and on state websites, and NIOSH
website topic pages.
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\1\ Eligible applicants include state and other government
entities such as local, county, or tribal health departments,
henceforth referred to as `states.'
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In 2019, NIOSH funded 26 state occupational health surveillance
programs of varying sizes and capacities. The portfolio of state based
activities includes 49 projects addressing work related morbidity and
mortality, exposure reduction, or special populations of interest.\2\
These states are funded through a research cooperative agreement
mechanism. The most recent (2014) announcement can be found at the
following web address: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-14-275.html.
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\2\ See https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/oep/statesurv.html.
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For its state-based surveillance and intervention cooperative
agreements, NIOSH is considering switching from a research cooperative
agreement approach to a non-research cooperative agreement approach.
CDC generally defines public health research as an activity that
develops or contributes to generalizable knowledge to improve public
health practice; a non-research activity is one that is designed to
identify and control a health problem or improve a public health
program or service.\3\ A non-research mechanism could be a public
health practice cooperative agreement or another cooperative agreement
type, and may or may not be a better fit for the scope of activities
ordinarily conducted by occupational health programs in a public health
context.
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\3\ CDC [2010], Distinguishing Public Health Research and Public
Health Nonresearch Policy, https://www.cdc.gov/od/science/integrity/docs/cdc-policy-distinguishing-public-health-research-nonresearch.pdf.
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Under the research mechanism currently used, submissions for
funding are evaluated on the following criteria: Significance,
investigators, innovation, approach, and environment. Under a non-
research approach, proposals would likely be evaluated based upon how
well the proposal identifies important occupational health burdens in
the state; approach for tracking these concerns; relevance and
potential impact of the public health actions proposed; and
organizational capacity of the applicant to achieve the proposal.
This exploration of funding mechanism type presents an opportunity
for NIOSH to receive stakeholder input and identify the best type from
a programmatic, logistic, and administrative point of view. Exploring
this and other approaches is recommended by the National Academies of
Science, Engineering and Medicine in its report ``A Smarter National
Surveillance System for
[[Page 42921]]
Occupational Safety and Health in the 21st Century.'' \4\
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\4\ See https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24835/a-smarter-national-surveillance-system-for-occupational-safety-and-health-in-the-21st-century.
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To identify and assess different options, NIOSH plans to conduct
the following activities: (1) Hold the public teleconference announced
in this notice to receive comments regarding funding approaches for its
state based occupational health surveillance programs and (2) seek
additional public comments through this docket.
NIOSH is interested in comments related to the funding mechanism as
it relates to impact on the conduct of state agency activities,
including comments on the following questions:
1. What are the advantages and disadvantages to the states if NIOSH
continues using research cooperative agreements for funding of state
occupational health surveillance programs?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages to the states if NIOSH
changed to using a non-research mechanism for funding state
occupational health surveillance programs?
3. If the non-research mechanism would specifically prohibit the
use of any funds for research, would this have a negative effects on
state occupational health surveillance program development or
direction? If so, please describe.
4. Only research cooperative agreements are covered by Certificates
of Confidentiality that protect the confidentiality of sensitive
information collected from research subjects by our grantees. Do states
need or use these certificates?
5. Would a non-research cooperative agreement mechanism impact the
ability of universities acting as bonafide agents of the states to
apply and receive funding under this mechanism? If so, how?
6. Non-research proposals undergo ``objective review,'' which
employs CDC reviewers in place of external peer reviewers. Scoring of
applications would likely use the criteria described above
(occupational health burdens in the state; approach for tracking these
concerns; relevance and potential impact of the public health actions
proposed; and organizational capacity of the state). Are there concerns
related to these criteria or the use of objective review?
7. It is possible that NIOSH will continue to employ an external
peer review process for scoring of applications. Are there concerns
related to the use of external peer review?
8. Using the principles of Burden, Need and Impact,\5\ the new
Notice of Funding Opportunity will focus on surveillance activities
that address the occupational safety and health burden of the applicant
state. How will this directive impact the applying states?
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\5\ See https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/programs/pps/bni.html for more
information about Burden, Need and Impact.
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9. The 2014 cooperative agreement (PAR-14-275) funded three
programmatic levels (fundamental, fundamental plus, and expanded
programs) to address the varying levels of surveillance capacity of
applicant states. Should this 3-tier funding strategy be continued? If
not, what other strategy might be considered?
10. How does the 3-tier funding strategy affect states' ability to
explore emerging occupational safety and health issues?
11. Occupational Health Indicators \6\ have been a central
component of the NIOSH state based surveillance program. What are the
advantages and disadvantages to your state program of continuing to
calculate and use the Occupational Health Indicators?
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\6\ See https://www.cste.org/page/OHIndicators for more
information about Occupational Health Indicators.
_____________________________________-
Public Meeting
NIOSH will hold a public teleconference meeting to solicit comments
on the future funding mechanism of its state-based occupational health
surveillance program. The meeting is open to the public, limited only
by the capacity of 250 connections to the web-based conference.
Confirm your attendance to this meeting by sending an email to
[email protected] by September 9, 2019. An email confirming registration
will be sent from NIOSH and will include details needed to participate.
Requests to make a statement at the public meeting should be
emailed to [email protected] by September 2, 2019. All requests to make
statements should contain the name, address, telephone number, and
relevant business affiliations of the presenter. Presenters will be
assigned a 5-minute slot on the agenda. Oral statements only will be
permitted--presentations of slides will not be permitted. NIOSH will
confirm presentation requests by email, and will provide additional
instructions regarding the presentation, including the approximate
start time for the presentation.
If a presenter is not in attendance when his/her presentation is
scheduled to begin, the remaining presenters will be heard in order.
After the last scheduled presenter is heard, those who missed their
opportunity may be allowed to present, limited by time available.
Attendees who wish to speak, but did not submit a request for the
opportunity to make a presentation, may be given this opportunity after
the scheduled presenters are heard, at the discretion of the presiding
official and limited by time available. Those who do not have an
opportunity to comment during the teleconference are encouraged to
submit written comments to the NIOSH docket.
The public meeting will be recorded, transcribed, and posted
without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal
information provided.
Frank J. Hearl,
Chief of Staff, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Health and
Human Services.
[FR Doc. 2019-17782 Filed 8-16-19; 8:45 am]
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