[Federal Register Volume 61, Number 106 (Friday, May 31, 1996)]
[Notices]
[Pages 27354-27356]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 96-13676]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
[Announcement Number 657]
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health;
Intervention Studies for Construction Safety and Health; Notice of
Availability of Funds for Fiscal Year 1996
Introduction
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), announces that
applications are being accepted for intervention projects relating to
occupational safety and health in the construction industry. Such
projects are intended to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of
methods or approaches for preventing illnesses and injuries among
construction workers. Thus, this announcement is not intended for
traditional hypothesis-testing research projects to identify and
investigate the relationships between health outcomes and occupational
exposures to hazardous agents.
CDC is committed to achieving the health promotion and disease
prevention objectives of ``Healthy People 2000,'' a national activity
to reduce morbidity and mortality and improve the quality of life. This
announcement is related to the priority area of ``Occupational Safety
and Health.'' (For ordering a copy of ``Healthy People 2000,'' see the
section ``WHERE TO OBTAIN ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.'')
Authority
This program is authorized under section 20(a) of the Occupational
Safety and Health Act of 1970, (29 U.S.C. 669(a)), and section 301(a)
of the Public Health Service Act, (42 U.S.C. 241(a)), as amended. The
applicable program regulation is 42 CFR Part 52.
Eligible Applicants
Eligible applicants include non-profit and for-profit
organizations, universities, colleges, research institutions, and other
public and private organizations, including State and local governments
and small, minority and/or woman-owned businesses.
Smoke-Free Workplace
CDC strongly encourages all grant recipients to provide a smoke-
free workplace and promote the non-use of all tobacco products, and
Public Law 103-227, the Pro-Children Act of 1994, prohibits smoking in
certain facilities that receive Federal funds in which education,
library, day care, health care, and early childhood development
services are provided to children.
Availability of Funds
About $750,000 is available in fiscal year (FY) 1996 to fund
approximately 4 to 5 project grants. The amount of funding available
may vary and is subject to change. Awards are anticipated to range from
$150,000 to $200,000 in total costs (direct and indirect) per year.
Awards are expected to begin on or about September 30, 1996. Awards
will be made for a 12-month budget period within a project period not
to exceed 3 years. Continuation awards within the project period will
be made on the basis of satisfactory progress and availability of
funds.
Purpose
NIOSH seeks to prevent work-related diseases and injuries in the
construction industry by designing, implementing, and evaluating
measures to reduce occupational hazards. If prevention measures are not
currently available, new technologies should be developed for
controlling hazardous exposures. Such new technologies must be
evaluated to determine that the prevention measures are feasible, even
for smaller businesses. Intervention research, of which control
technology is a part, examines the utility and impact of new and
existing preventive measures in the workplace.
Programmatic Interest
The focus of these grants should facilitate progress in preventing
adverse effects among construction workers. A project that is proposed
to develop or test the efficacy of an intervention should be designed
to establish, discover, develop, elucidate, or confirm information
relating to occupational safety and health, including innovative
methods, techniques, and approaches for solving occupational safety and
health problems.
A project that is proposed to demonstrate the effectiveness of an
intervention should address, either on a pilot or full-scale basis, the
technical or economic feasibility of implementing a new/improved
innovative procedure, method, technique, or system for preventing
occupational safety or health problems. A demonstration project should
be conducted in an actual workplace where a baseline measure of the
occupational problem will be defined, the new/improved approach will be
implemented, a follow-up measure of the problem will be documented, and
an evaluation of the benefits will be conducted.
The overall NIOSH program priorities, including those related to
the construction industry, were developed by NIOSH and its partners in
the public and private sectors to provide a framework to guide
occupational safety and health research in the next decade--not only
for NIOSH but also for the entire occupational safety and health
community. Approximately 500 organizations and individuals outside
NIOSH provided input into the development of the National Occupational
Research Agenda (NORA). This attempt to guide and coordinate research
nationally is responsive to a broadly perceived need to address
systematically those topics that are most pressing and most likely to
yield gains to the worker and the nation. Fiscal constraints on
occupational safety and health research are increasing, making even
more compelling the need for a coordinated and focused research agenda.
NIOSH intends to support projects that facilitate progress in
understanding and preventing adverse effects among workers.
The Agenda identifies 21 research priorities. These priorities
reflect a remarkable degree of concurrence among a large number of
stakeholders. The NORA priority research areas are grouped into three
categories: Disease and Injury, Work Environment and Workforce, and
Research Tools and Approaches. The NORA document is available through
the NIOSH Home Page; http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nora.html.
Consistent with NORA, the following are high priority directions
for research under this announcement. Investigators may also apply in
other areas related to construction safety and health, but the
rationale for the significance of the research and demonstrations to
construction must be developed in the application.
1. Understand how economic issues impact the acceptance of best
safety practices.
2. Understand the aspects of changing the safety culture in
organizations, including residential and other small contractors.
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3. Improve the health and safety aspects of construction tools and
of general technology development/utilization.
4. Identify effective ways to obtain information and conduct
research on non-union workers and contractors.
5. Identify training techniques that are effective in causing safe
work practices to be adopted.
6. Investigate mechanisms that lead to nongovernmental support/
funding for regional training and safety and health services.
7. Investigate new concepts for job-site improvement (such as
scheduling of deliveries, material location and transport in vehicular
worker traffic patterns, etc.).
8. Identify causes of dramatic differences in regional injury rates
for both small and large firms, as well as union and non-union
operations.
9. Select focus areas that will be of perceived immediate benefit
to the customers. (Based upon achievable benchmarks in construction
safety and health, the NIOSH program priorities applicable to this
Program Announcement are to reduce construction-related deaths, lost-
time injuries and illnesses, back injuries, eye injuries, skin
disorders or diseases, lead poisonings, hearing loss, silicosis, and
asbestosis.)
Potential applicants with questions concerning the acceptability of
their proposed work are strongly encouraged to contact the technical
information contact listed in this announcement in the section ``WHERE
TO OBTAIN ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.''
Evaluation Criteria
Upon receipt, applications will be reviewed by CDC for completeness
and responsiveness. Applications determined to be incomplete or
unresponsive to this announcement will be returned to the applicant
without further consideration. If the proposed project involves
organizations or persons other than those affiliated with the applicant
organization, letters of support and/or cooperation must be included.
Applications that are complete and responsive to the announcement
will be reviewed by an initial review group in which applications will
be determined to be competitive or non-competitive based on their
technical merit relative to other applications received. Applications
determined to be non-competitive will be withdrawn from further
consideration and the principal investigator/program director and the
official signing for the applicant organization will be promptly
notified. Applications judged to be competitive will be discussed and
assigned a priority score.
Review criteria for technical merit are as follows:
1. Technical significance and originality of proposed project.
2. Appropriateness and adequacy of the study design and methodology
proposed to carry out the project.
3. Qualifications and research experience of the Principal
Investigator and staff, particularly but not exclusively in the area of
the proposed project.
4. Availability of resources necessary to perform the project.
5. Documentation of cooperation from industry, unions, or other
participants in the project, where applicable.
6. Adequacy of plans to include both sexes and minorities and their
subgroups as appropriate for the scientific goals of the project.
(Plans for the recruitment and retention of subjects will also be
evaluated.)
7. Appropriateness of budget and period of support.
8. Human Subjects--Procedures adequate for the protection of human
subjects must be documented. Recommendations on the adequacy of
protections include: (1) protections appear adequate and there are no
comments to make or concerns to raise, (2) protections appear adequate,
but there are comments regarding the protocol, (3) protections appear
inadequate and the Objective Review Group (ORG) has concerns related to
human subjects, or, (4) disapproval of the application is recommended
because the research risks are sufficiently serious and protection
against the risks are inadequate as to make the entire application
unacceptable.
Secondary review criteria for programmatic importance are as
follows:
1. Results of the initial review.
2. Magnitude of the problem in terms of numbers of workers
affected.
3. Severity of the disease or injury in the worker population.
4. Usefulness to applied technical knowledge in the evaluation, or
control of construction safety and health hazards.
5. Degree to which the project can be expected to yield or
demonstrate results that will be useful on a national or regional
basis.
Applicants will compete for available funds with all other approved
applications. The following will be considered in making funding
decisions:
1. Quality of the proposed project as determined by peer review.
2. Availability of funds.
3. Program balance among priority areas of the announcement.
Executive Order 12372 Review
Applications are not subject to the review requirements of
Executive Order 12372, entitled Intergovernmental Review of Federal
Programs.
Public Health System Reporting Requirement
This program is not subject to the Public Health System Reporting
Requirements.
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number
The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance number is 93.262.
Other Requirements
Paperwork Reduction Act
Projects that involve the collection of information from 10 or more
individuals and funded by the grant will be subject to review and
approval by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under the
Paperwork Reduction Act.
Human Subjects
The applicant must comply with the Department of Health and Human
Services Regulations, 45 CFR Part 46, regarding the protection of human
subjects. Assurances must be provided to demonstrate that the project
will be subject to initial and continuing review by an appropriate
institutional review committee. The applicant will be responsible for
providing assurance in accordance with the appropriate guidelines and
forms provided in the application kit.
Women and Racial and Ethnic Minorities
It is the policy of the CDC to ensure that women and racial and
ethnic groups will be included in CDC supported research projects
involving human subjects, whenever feasible and appropriate. Racial and
ethnic groups are those defined in OMB Directive No. 15 and include
American Indian, Alaskan Native, Asian, Pacific Islander, Black and
Hispanic. Applicants shall ensure that women and racial and ethnic
minority populations are appropriately represented in applications for
research involving human subjects. Where clear and compelling rationale
exist that inclusion is not feasible, this situation must be explained
as part of the application. In conducting the review of applications
for scientific merit, review groups will evaluate proposed plans for
inclusion of minorities and both sexes as part of the
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scientific assessment and assigned score. This policy does not apply to
research studies when the investigator cannot control the race,
ethnicity and/or sex of subjects. Further guidance to this policy is
contained in the Federal Register, Vol. 60, No. 179, Friday, September
15, 1995, pages 47947-47951.
Application Submission and Deadlines
A. Preapplication Letter of Intent
Although not a prerequisite of application, a non-binding letter of
intent-to-apply is requested from potential applicants. The letter
should be submitted to the Grants Management Officer (whose address is
reflected in section B, ``Applications''). It should be postmarked no
later than June 28, 1996. The letter should identify the announcement
number, name of principal investigator, and specify the priority area
to be addressed by the proposed project. The letter of intent does not
influence review or funding decisions, but it will enable CDC to plan
the review more efficiently, and will ensure that each applicant
receives timely and relevant information prior to application
submission.
B. Applications
Applicants should use Form PHS-398 (OMB Number 0925-0001) and
adhere to the ERRATA Instruction Sheet for Form PHS-398 contained in
the Grant Application Kit. Please submit an original and five copies on
or before July 26, 1996 to: Ron Van Duyne, Grants Management Officer,
Grants Management Branch, Procurement and Grants Office, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 255 East Paces Ferry Road, NE.,
Room 321, MS-E13, Atlanta, GA 30305.
C. Deadlines
1. Applications shall be considered as meeting a deadline if they
are either:
A. Received at the above address on or before the deadline date, or
B. Sent on or before the deadline date to the above address, and
received in time for the review process. Applicants should request a
legibly dated U.S. Postal Service postmark or obtain a legibly dated
receipt from a commercial carrier or the U.S. Postal Service. Private
metered postmarks shall not be accepted as proof of timely mailings.
2. Applications which do not meet the criteria above are considered
late applications and will be returned to the applicant.
Where To Obtain Additional Information
To receive additional written information call (404) 332-4561. You
will be asked your name, address, and phone number and will need to
refer to Announcement 657. You will receive a complete program
description, information on application procedures, and application
forms. In addition, this announcement is also available through the CDC
Home Page on the Internet. The address for the CDC Home Page is http://
www.cdc.gov. If you have questions after reviewing the contents of all
the documents, business management technical assistance may be obtained
from Georgia Jang, Grants Management Specialist, Grants Management
Branch, Procurement and Grants Office, Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC), 255 East Paces Ferry Road, NE., MS-E13, Atlanta, GA
30305, telephone (404) 842-6796; fax: 404-842-6513; internet:
glj2@opspgo1.em.cdc.gov. Programmatic technical assistance may be
obtained from Roy M. Fleming, Sc.D., Associate Director for Grants,
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1600 Clifton Road, NE., Building
1, Room 3053, MS-D30, Atlanta, GA 30333, telephone (404) 639-3343; fax:
404-639-4616; internet: rmf2@niood1.em.cdc.gov.
There may be delays in mail delivery as well as difficulty in
reaching the CDC Atlanta offices during the 1996 Summer Olympics (July
19-August 4). Therefore, in order to receive more timely response to
questions please use INTERNET/E-Mail, follow all instructions in this
announcement and leave messages on the contact person's voice mail.
Please refer to announcement number 657 when requesting information
and submitting an application.
Potential applicants may obtain a copy of ``Healthy People 2000''
(Full Report, Stock No. 017-001-00474-0) or ``Healthy People 2000''
(Summary Report, Stock No. 017-001-00473-1) through the Superintendent
of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402-9325,
telephone (202) 512-1800.
Dated: May 24, 1996.
Donald L. Holderman,
Acting Director, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
[FR Doc. 96-13676 Filed 5-30-96; 8:45 am]
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