Allergic and Irritant Dermatitis Team
The Allergic and Irritant Dermatitis (AID) Team mission is to develop a broad-based, active, and lasting group to catalyze research in AID. To date, AID Team accomplishments include: organizing and co-sponsoring meetings within the occupational safety and health and dermatology community; enhancing dermatology-related activities through both intramural and extramural research; and developing research priorities. In September 1998, the team cosponsored the "Workshop on Health Effects and Benefits of UV Radiation and Tanning" with the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), NIOSH, and others. The Experimental Contact Dermatitis Research Group, sponsored by NORA AID Team/NIOSH, the Skin Disease Research Centers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University/University Hospitals of Cleveland, and the Procter & Gamble Company will convene in Cincinnati May 20-21, 1999. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the basic and applied science of experimental contact dermatitis. In FY 98, NIOSH and NIAMS co-funded an RFA for irritant dermatitis and funded five dermatitis projects. Additionally, the team has been working on developing research priorities in AID (now available in draft form).
Asthma & Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Team
The Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Team has concentrated its efforts on partnerships with federal agencies to increase resources available for research on occupational asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). For the extramural research community, the NIOSH partnership with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has resulted in requests for applications in both 1998 and 1999. In addition, NIOSH partnered with the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to fund two cooperative agreements to ascertain the population-based proportion of incident asthma cases attributable to occupational exposures. Intramural NIOSH research has benefitted from partnerships with the Veterans Administration and the National Toxicology Program on latex asthma. The team hosted an international symposium on asthma last spring, has stimulated two ad hoc subcommittees of the American Thoracic Society to prepare published statements on occupational asthma and COPD, and is developing program initiatives on asthma prevention and building-related asthma (a cross-cutting priority of the Indoor Environmental Quality NORA team).
Cancer Research Methods Team
The NORA Cancer Research Methods Team has been reviewing methodologies that can have an impact on occupational cancer research. These methodologies range from the microlevel (such as structure-activity relationships to predict carcinogens) to the macrolevel (such as improvements in exposure assessments in epidemiological studies). The team is planning to publish a white paper on research needs and gaps for cancer research methods.
Control Technology and Personal Protective Equipment Team
In combination with the American Industrial Hygiene Association and the American Society of Safety Engineers, the team held a unique conference, "The Control of Workplace Hazards for the 21st Century: Setting the Research Agenda," in Chicago in March 1998. It brought together over 250 researchers, manufacturers, and users of engineering controls and personal protective equipment. At the conference, the participants set future directions for control technology research. Six priorities for research were identified: chemical protective clothing, engineering controls, noise, non-ionizing radiation, respirators, and traumatic injuries.
Emerging Technologies Team
The NORA Emerging Technologies Team is working on the team's three focus areas: 1) establishing mechanisms to ensure that worker health and safety is considered when new technologies are developed and implemented; 2) surveillance systems for tracking the impact of new technology on worker safety and health; and 3) technology transfer of safety and health controls and innovations from one industrial sector to another. In March 1998, team members participated in each of the six breakout sessions held during the "Control of Workplace Hazards for the 21st Century: Setting the Research Agenda" workshop in Chicago. The team is currently considering a pilot project, in conjunction with the EPA, to incorporate occupational safety and health considerations into a new or revised technology which will serve as a model for use by others.
Exposure Assessment Methods Team
The Exposure Assessment Methods Team is composed of 14 members representing various disciplines (e.g., chemistry, biology, industrial hygiene, occupational health nursing, toxicology, and epidemiology) from government, academia, labor, and industry. The team is involved in symposia with the American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienists, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences/National Toxicology Program, and the International Symposium on Occupational Exposure Data Bases and Their Application in the Next Millennium. The team is in the process of developing a white paper describing research that addresses key exposure assessment issues such as field study design, monitoring methods development, and toxicology research, along with needs in education and publications relative to exposure assessment.
Fertility and Pregnancy Abnormalities Team
The mission of the Fertility and Pregnancy Abnormalities Team is to assist in the development and pursuit of reproductive health research. One of the team's goals is to increase public awareness and understanding of known reproductive hazards. To do this, the team is using the NORA web page, the NTP/NIEHS Center web page, and pamphlets published by NIOSH. The team helped organize the conference, "Hazardous Substances and Male Reproductive Health," held in May 1998 in New York. The conference was sponsored by Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NIEHS, NIOSH, and the New York Academy of Medicine. The team is also developing a paper on current research needs in the field of occupational reproductive health to help encourage research in areas that are most in need. NIOSH and NIEHS are cosponsoring the 1999 RFA which includes fertility and pregnancy abnormalities as a targeted research area. A workshop is planned for the Fall of 1999 to discuss ways to bridge the different methodological approaches used by epidemiologists and toxicologists such as sample size issues, statistical analysis methods, and presentation of results.
Health Services Research Team
The Health Services Research Team seeks to define and promote research into the delivery of health care to workers. The team has been active in planning the upcoming conference, "Functional, Economic, and Social Outcomes of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses: Integrating Social, Economic, and Health Services Research," to be held June 13-15, 1999, in Denver, Colorado. This conference will bring together researchers from both the Health Services Research and Social and Economic Consequences NORA teams, and will be used to create position papers for each topic. Team members also participated in a health services research meeting sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Workers' Compensation Health Initiative on September 15 and 16, 1998 which will be summarized in published conference proceedings. Team members are also participating in a research project funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to create performance measures for occupational health services provided in managed care. Several research papers from this project have been drafted for submission to peer-reviewed journals. New research partnerships are being explored with major industrial employers.
Hearing Loss Team
The Hearing Loss Team is writing a white paper on occupational hearing loss, developing a proposed model curricula for graduate students in Audiology and Industrial Hygiene, and will compile documents based on best practices workshops planned by the team. The first of these conferences, "Best Practices for Hearing Loss Prevention," will be held on October 28, 1999, in Detroit, Michigan. Cosponsors of the conference include: NIOSH, the National Hearing Conservation Association, the National Safety Council, the American Hygiene Association, the Michigan Industrial Hygiene Association, the Institute for Noise Control Engineering, and the Douglas A. Fraser Center for Workplace Issues at Wayne State University . The team is also working with the NIOSH Office of Health Communication on a research-based communication activity which will provide important hearing loss prevention messages to health professionals, employers, and workers.
Indoor Environment Team
The Indoor Environment Team has generated a priority research agenda for improving the health of workers in indoor environments, reflecting available information on public health and economic impacts of building-related health effects. Inclusion of a draft version of this research agenda in the NIOSH 1998 RFA stimulated generation of 24 grant applications in this research area, of which NIOSH was able to fund two: a blinded, controlled intervention study of the effects on illness absence and respiratory illness of ventilation rate and building humidification, using a polymerase chain reaction assay to diagnose specific strains of respiratory infection; and the development of a hand-held microanalytical system to identify and quantify low concentrations of mixed volatile organic compounds in indoor environments.
Infectious Diseases Team
The mission of the Infectious Diseases Team (ID) is to review and recommend needed changes in occupational infectious diseases research efforts, facilitate the development of new research and collaboration in this area, call attention to the national needs in occupational infectious diseases research, and help in the greater dissemination of research data in the field. To this end, the team has developed a draft white paper addressing major research needs, particularly those involving human-to-human transmission. Team members are working with NIOSH and other CDC staff to help develop and to review an Alert on needle-stick injuries. The team has also discussed possible collaboration with the NORA Indoor Environment team on research addressing the hazards of common infectious diseases in office workers. Particularly with several new team members, we will reexamine occupational infectious disease activities and needs and our draft white paper during our face-to-face meeting at the NORA Symposium in May, 1999.
Intervention Effectiveness Research Team
The NORA Intervention Effectiveness Research (IER) Team has been active in carrying out the team's mission to: 1) encourage more testing of interventions to improve health and safety in the workplace; 2) improve evaluation (measurement, analysis, and documentation) of intervention efforts; 3) make intervention evaluation more accessible to researchers, health and safety professionals, labor, and management, by promoting the development of practical tools and approaches; and 4) broaden dissemination of results and lessons learned from occupational safety and health intervention research. The team developed a theoretical model to help clarify the major steps and activities involved in an intervention effectiveness study, which will be described in a white paper that is in preparation. IER has also developed a case-based workshop exercise to give health and safety professionals hands-on experience at developing and evaluating a specific intervention. The team is working with the Institute of Labor and Health in Toronto, Canada, to prepare an intervention evaluation manual for professionals, and is also developing an employer-friendly practical manual for evaluating occupational safety and health interventions in the workplace.
Mixed Exposures Team
The NORA Mixed Exposures Team is developing a white paper that defines the topic of mixed exposures, reviews the recent and past literature, and describes on-going work both nationally and internationally. Combined with an assessment of the regulatory needs for controlling mixed exposures, the team will produce a document describing a research agenda. The Mixed Exposure Team is examining mixtures from the perspective of: complex mixtures (like combustion exhausts), mixtures with identifiable composition, mixed stressor exposures (such as noise and chemicals), and mixtures associated with particular workplaces or processes (like coal mine dust). More information about Mixed Exposures can be found at http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/programs/expa/products.html.
Musculoskeletal Disorders Team
The Musculoskeletal Disorders Team is engaged in developing a National Occupational Research Agenda on Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders. In 1998, the first step in the process was a series of three workshops in Washington, D.C., Chicago, Illinois, and Seattle, Washington, where over 150 practitioners (ergonomists, occupational physicians, and others) used their experience to identify gaps in existing knowledge and determine what should be included in a national research agenda. In 1998 and 999, the NORA team developed a draft summary of research ideas in the areas of surveillance, etiological research, and intervention research. This document was discussed in a fourth workshop of fifty academicians in March 1999. The team plans to use this input to develop the final research agenda.
Organization of Work Team
Since 1998, the Organization of Work Team has met on a monthly basis to consider the changing nature of work, potential health and safety risks, and prevention strategies. To better understand knowledge gaps and research needs in these areas, an outreach workshop with key interest groups was held on March 9 and 10, 1999 in Baltimore, MD. Team members met with over 30 representatives from national and international stakeholder organizations, including universities, labor and management organizations, government agencies, and professional associations. The meeting consisted of structured activities and plenary sessions designed to elicit stakeholder viewpoints on three broad topics: 1) how the organization of work is changing, 2) safety and health implications of these changes, and 3) interventions for reducing health and safety risks. Information from this meeting is being integrated into a strategic report on research needs in work organization and health.
The team also sponsored with the American Psychological Association a major scientific meeting on work organization and health March 11-13, 1999, in Baltimore. A substantial proportion of the papers came from international contributors, including scientists from Asia, Europe, Canada, and South America. One of the poster sessions featured presentations by five different NORA teams. Finally, members of the team have met with interest groups such as the Academy of Management and the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health to describe the teams' activities and to seek input and collaboration.
Risk Assessment Methods Team
The Risk Assessment Methods Team has defined ten research areas that will promote improvements in the methodologies used for risk assessment. One of these research areas was funded by NIOSH in a Cooperative Agreement with researchers at the University of North Carolina. This Cooperative Agreement will support research to evaluate the degree of concordance between toxicologic and epidemiologic estimates of risk for carcinogenic hazards. NIOSH, EPA, and NCI have committed to a 1999 RFA for research focusing on the development of cancer risk assessment methods and practices. The team is also currently planning a workshop on future directions in risk assessment methods research that will be held in the summer of 2000.
Social and Economic Consequences of Workplace Illness and Injury Team
The Social and Economic Consequences of Workplace Illness and Injury Team is developing comprehensive bibliographies of published research on the social and economic consequences of workplace illness and injury. Additionally, the team, in conjunction with the Health Services Research Team, has been organizing a national conference entitled, "Functional, Economic, and Social Outcomes of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses: Integrating Social, Economic, and Health Services Research," to be held June 13 - 15, 1999, in Denver, CO. This conference will address performance measures for health services delivered to prevent or treat occupational injury or illness, measures of the economic and social impact of occupational injury or illness, and research that integrates these areas. Researchers from government agencies, public and private research organizations, academic institutions, and worker groups will provide their individual professional opinion, judgment, and recommendations for a position paper. To generate focused discussion, summary reports on the current state of knowledge will be provided.
Special Populations at Risk Team
The Special Populations at Risk Team assisted in the development of the July 1999 volume of the quarterly journal, Occupational Medicine: State of the Art Reviews, which will focus entirely on the issues facing special populations at risk. Several team members also participated in the development of the Institute of Medicine report, Youth at Work, which was released in November 1998. This study, which was cosponsored by NIOSH, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and other federal agencies, included recommendations for data collection and research to guide prevention efforts, as well as a number of recommendations for regulation, and better preparing youth for the world of work. With NIOSH funding, several of the team members helped to organize a new research track at the annual migrant stream forum meeting. As a direct result of this effort a new research listserve has recently been initiated. The team is also addressing research directions for the aging workforce.
Surveillance Research Methods Team
The Surveillance Research Methods Team is engaged in a variety of activities to develop and implement a national agenda for surveillance. The NORA FY 99 RFA includes solicitation for grant proposals on surveillance research methods. The team has been working with the Exposure Assessment and Surveillance Research Methods Teams on exposure surveillance issues.
The Team is also conducting additional outreach to four target groups: NIOSH state partners, labor, management, and academia. These efforts will provide the team and NIOSH with insight into external surveillance issues and expand the base of information from which to frame the team's vision and recommendations in a white paper for a national surveillance agenda.
Traumatic Occupational Injury Research Team
The initial activity of the Traumatic Occupational Injury Research Team was assisting with the sponsorship of the first National Occupational Injury Research Symposium (NOIRS) in October 1997. This was the first ever national conference on occupational injury research and was attended by over 300 occupational safety professionals from a wide variety of disciplines and organizations. The team is currently involved in the planning of the second Symposium, scheduled for October 2000.
The second major activity of the team was the development of a document describing the needs and priorities for traumatic occupational injury research in the U.S. Published by NIOSH in 1998, the document, "Traumatic Occupational Injury Research Needs and Priorities," provides a broad framework of the objectives and research needed to begin filling the gaps in knowledge and furthering progress toward safer workplaces and practices. This document provides a reference and structure for traumatic occupational injury research which can be used to facilitate the initiation of new, and the rekindling of existing, partnerships and collaborative research to prevent worker injuries and deaths. The team is encouraging agencies and organizations to use this document as a basis for planning and prioritizing their own research and for pursuing new partnerships and identifying topics for collaborative efforts.
This page was last updated: May 24, 1999
