The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), intends to publish a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for Occupational Safety & Health Surveillance Programs in the United States.

Work-related illnesses, injuries,

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exposures, and fatalities can be prevented, and successful approaches to making workplaces safer and healthier begin with having the data necessary to understand the problem.

As part of NIOSH's mission to develop new knowledge in the field of occupational safety and health and to transfer that knowledge into practice, NIOSH has established surveillance programs intended to assess the extent and severity of workplace illnesses, injuries, exposures, and fatalities, identify workers and occupations at greatest risk, develop research and prevention priorities, communicate these findings to stakeholders, and measure the effectiveness of prevention activities.

The purpose of this Program is to strengthen occupational safety and health surveillance within states and other eligible jurisdictions to provide information that will help drive actions to improve the health of workers.

This program will build upon existing state and local public health capacity and expertise in occupational safety and health surveillance to empower public health practitioners, health care providers, and others to make information-driven decisions that will improve the health of workers.

For states and others where occupational safety and health surveillance capacity does not currently exist, this program may help to develop that capacity.

NIOSH expects this NOFO to have meaningful impact on occupational safety and health surveillance, epidemiology, and public health.

The goals of the program are the following:
1) Identify and access data that can be used to describe the state burden of work-related illnesses, injuries, exposures, and/or fatalities; identify trends and emerging issues; create occupational health indicators (OHIs); and use findings to calculate the incidence and/or prevalence of occupational injuries, illnesses, exposures, and/or fatalities; 2) set program priorities for follow-up activities, including more in-depth data surveillance and outreach, prevention, and/or intervention programs to address state priorities and emerging issues; 3) develop a broad network of partners who can assist in identifying data appropriate for occupational safety and health surveillance and in disseminating results; 4) develop and disseminate public health recommendations, interventions, and policies that can improve worker health and safety in their state; and 5) apply current technologies to develop and communicate audience-specific educational materials, outreach, and other resources for optimizing their uptake, adoption, or adaptation for protecting workers.

Funded programs are expected to be resourceful and proactive in identifying and accessing untapped data sources for occupational safety and health surveillance, which may include creating linkages between data sources.

They should also develop strategic and organizational activities to foster partnerships and ensure a competent program with the state infrastructure.

Other Information Information on the current state surveillance program can be found in PAR-14-27 5.

Information on the 26 state surveillance programs currently funded is available at the NIOSH OEP Web site.

Intermediate goals specify desired actions on the part of external stakeholders using NIOSH research findings and outputs, and applicants are highly encouraged to read and indicate how NIOSH's strategic plan, which includes NIOSH program intermediate goals, might fit within their proposed program.

Applicants might also be interested in reading more information about the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Office of Extramural Programs (OEP) as .as well as more information on NIOSH's NIOSH has identified extramural research priority goals for extramural research for the five-year period of fiscal year 2019 (FY19) to fiscal year 2023 (FY23).

Applicants might be interested to learn about these priorities.