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Proposed Project

A Message-Based Intervention for Technology Transfer—New—National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The mission of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is to promote safety and health at work for all people through research and prevention. Over 6 million American workers are at risk for inhalation exposure of potentially harmful metals. Workers in mining, construction, and related industries are potentially exposed to airborne contaminants such as silver, lead, nickel, manganese, chromium and zinc which can cause health problems ranging from metal fume fever and asthma to cancer and parkinsonism. NIOSH has developed analytical methods for portable field exposure assessment that would help reduce metals exposure. The goal of this project is to increase the self-reported use of NIOSH developed analytical methods for field portable exposure assessment by American industrial hygienists across the five-year period from 2000 to 2004. To achieve this technology transfer goal, NIOSH proposes three aims: (1) to create, (2) implement, and (3) evaluate a message-based intervention targeted toward American industrial hygienists. If this project is successful then NIOSH will also have developed and validated a communication strategy that could be adapted to other technology transfer problems.

First, NIOSH will develop a message-based intervention targeted toward American industrial hygienists. To do this, NIOSH will create and pretest the message, channel, and receiver variables that will compose the intervention. Pretesting of the intervention will occur via mailout surveys and on-site pretesting with industrial hygienists attending conferences sponsored by AIHA (the American Industrial Hygiene Association), ABIH (the American Board of Industrial Hygiene), and ACGIH. Pretesting will occur during the first two years of the project (2000-1), with a total of 1,000 industrial hygienists.

Second, NIOSH will implement the multi-channel, multi-exposure, message-based intervention that was created through pretesting. NIOSH intends to employ the following four channels of: (1) Trade print sources (journal and magazine), (2) web site, (3) direct personalized mailings, and (4) face-to-face interaction through trade show demonstrations. The entire population of American industrial hygienists (approximately 13,000) will be targeted by this intervention. The intervention will occur across four years, applying modifications as needed during the time period.

Finally, NIOSH will conduct annual surveys of randomly selected samples of American industrial hygienists on their self reported use of NIOSH developed analytical methods for field portable exposure assessment through mail-in surveys based on standard HCRB communication and outcome protocols. During Year 1 (2000), a survey of 700 randomly selected industrial hygienists will be conducted to assess baseline levels of attitudes, knowledge and behaviors with regard to the use of the NIOSH developed analytical methods prior to receiving the intervention. During the next three years (2001-2003), an annual survey of 700 randomly selected industrial hygienists will be conducted to evaluate the impact of the message-based intervention on the use of NIOSH analytical methods.

The estimated annualized burden is 1905 hours.

Respondents	Number of respondents	Number of responses	Average hour burden per response
Industrial Hygienist	1000 pretesting	1	.33
	700 Baseline Survey	1	.25
	2100 Annual Survey	1	5

Dated: September 26, 2000.

Nancy Cheal,

Acting Associate Director for Policy, Planning, and Evaluation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).