[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 221 (Monday, November 17, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 68447-68449]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-27018]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
[60Day-15-15EC]
Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and
Recommendations
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part of
its continuing effort to reduce public burden, invites the general
public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment
on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by
the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. To request more information on the
below proposed project or to obtain a copy of the information
collection plan and instruments, call 404-639-7570 or send comments to
Leroy A. Richardson, 1600 Clifton Road, MS-D74, Atlanta, GA 30333 or
send an email to [email protected].
Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized
and/or included in the request for Office of Management and Budget
(OMB) approval. Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed
collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of
the functions of the agency, including whether the information shall
have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of
the burden of the proposed collection of information; (c) ways to
enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be
collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of
information on respondents, including through the use of automated
collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e)
estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation,
maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information. Burden
means the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by
persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide information
to or for a Federal agency. This includes the time needed to review
instructions; to develop, acquire, install and utilize technology and
systems for the purpose of collecting, validating and verifying
information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and
providing information; to train personnel and to be able to respond to
a collection of information, to search data sources, to complete and
review the collection of information; and to transmit or otherwise
disclose the information. Written comments should be received within 60
days of this notice.
Proposed Project
Improving Organizational Management and Worker Behavior through
Worksite Communication-- New--National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC).
Background and Brief Description
NIOSH, under Public Law 91-596, Sections 20 and 22 (Section 20-22,
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1977) has the responsibility to
conduct research relating to innovative methods, techniques, and
approaches dealing with occupational safety and health problems.
This research assesses best practices for communicating and
employing a strategic health and safety management system (HSMS) to
facilitate workers' health and safety behaviors, including ways that
lateral communication from management influences worker perceptions and
behaviors. Currently, ambivalence exists about how to strategically
communicate aspects of an HSMS top-down in the mining industry.
Research indicates that, to answer questions about effectively using an
HSMS to improve safety, research needs to follow a sample of workplaces
over time, measuring the introduction or utilization of an HSMS and
then measuring outcomes of interest at the workplace level and at the
worker-level too.
Therefore, analyzing workers' perception of the organizational
HSMS, leaders' implementation of the organizational HSMS, and
communication gaps between these two entities, may provide more insight
into the best, most feasible practices and approaches to worker H&S
performance within a system. This project is initiating such an
approach by implementing a series of multilevel intervention (MLI) case
studies that assess the utility of a safety system that includes
aspects of both safety management on the organizational level and
behavior-based safety on the worker level. By studying these levels
separately and introducing an intervention to bridge these two groups
together to enhance safety, the communication practices within an HSMS
may be enhanced.
NIOSH requests OMB approval for a 3-year for a project that
involves information collection and that seeks to empirically
understand what HSMS communication practices are important for mine
worker H&S and how those practices can be developed, implemented, and
maintained over time via desired communication from mine site
leadership. The following questions guide this study:
What impact does the MLI communication model that was designed and
implemented have on: (1) Workers' health/safety behaviors, including
those that lower exposure to dust; (2) workers' perceptions of their
organizations' values; and (3) changes in managers' strategic HSMS
communication and implementation with workers to facilitate health/
safety performance, including those that lower exposure to dust.
To answer the above questions, NIOSH researchers developed a
multilevel intervention (MLI) that focuses on both management and
workers' communication about and subsequent actions taken to reduce
respirable dust exposure over time. This MLI will inform how leadership
communicates to their employees and what affect(s) this communication
has on individual behavior such as corrective dust actions taken by
workers. By assessing the ongoing safety/health interactions between
individual workers and their organizational capacities (i.e. levels of
leadership and management of safety), and how these interactions
influence and shape personal H&S performance, we can better understand
what aspects of both systems need attention in a merged, more balanced
and comprehensive system of health and safety management (DeJoy, 2005).
Specifically, this project is using mine technology, the Helmet-
CAM, as a communication medium to help merge these two worksite
systems. Previous research indicates that the use of information
technology can enhance lateral and horizontal communication within
organizations, showing support for using the Helmet-CAM in the current
study (Hinds & Kiesler, 1995). NIOSH researchers can analyze what and
how communication practices should be implemented to influence worker
perceptions of their organizations' H&S values and how this impacts
their subsequent H&S behavior. Eventually, the practices used to
influence behavior related to this dust issue can be extrapolated to
inform ways to
[[Page 68448]]
communicate about and manage additional health/safety problems within
the industry via an HSMS as implemented by site leaders.
The Helmet-CAM incorporates video footage and real-time dust
measurements of workers while performing their job duties and tasks in
various locations throughout the workday. This technology has proven to
be a very viable assessment tool to provide a comparison of where and
when miners are being exposed to their highest respirable dust
concentrations. As a result, Helmet-CAM technology is being employed at
many mines as a way to identify dust exposures of workers and to help
reduce dust hazards in the environment. However, we do not yet know how
mine site management is using, if at all, this technology to
communicate with workers about their personal health and safety
barriers and behaviors. Discussions about the tasks workers perform
when exposure levels are high and what actions they can take to reduce
their dust exposure may be valuable to the industry in helping advance
the way engineering-control technology is used from a behavioral
vantage point as well.
The MLI is designed to help mine workers and organizational
leadership work together, using the Helmet-CAM to bridge their
communication efforts, to lower exposure to respirable dust among other
H/S behaviors. Previous research (Yorio et al. 2014) identified three
distinct areas that influence the relationship between the strategic
HSMS and its overall success in implementing and encouraging worker
behavior change: Worksite leadership, organizational values, and worker
perceptions and interpretations of management. Data on these three
contingencies are collected from the management and worker levels
during three time points throughout a six-week intervention to assess
the ongoing communication via the Helmet-CAM and effects of the
communication on behavior. Data collection and analysis pertaining to
these three areas may occur via a pre/post survey with workers and pre/
mid/post interviews/focus groups with workers and mine site leaders,
some of which include dialogue around Helmet-CAM footage as provided by
the workers who choose to participate.
NIOSH proposes this intervention design at a minimum of three and
no more than five industrial mineral metal/nonmetal mine sites. All of
the data collection instruments have been used in previous studies to
examine worker and leadership variables and factors. Therefore, NIOSH
knows that the data collection instruments are valid and reliable to
use in studying the worker and leader levels simultaneously, within the
same mine. Industrial mineral sites will be recruited who have inquired
interest in learning how to use the Helmet-CAM on their site and/or
interest in improving their site wide communication efforts. Only a
small sample of workers will participate at each mine site because of
the time required for completion and to ensure the longitudinal data
can be adequately collected over the six weeks. In other words, we
would rather collect data multiple times with the same worker and have
fewer participants than collect data from more workers but not have the
ability to appropriately follow-up during the subsequent two visits.
Data collection will take place with no more than 150 mine workers
and 30 mine site leaders over three years. The respondents targeted for
this study include any active mine worker and any active site leader at
an industrial mineral metal/nonmetal mine site. It is estimated that a
sample of up to 150 mine workers will participate in the intervention,
which includes wearing the Helmet-CAM for a portion of their job tasks
(no more than two hours total) during three time periods (when NIOSH is
present during the field visit). In addition to wearing the Helmet-CAM,
workers will be asked to complete a pre and post-test survey (~15
minutes) and an interview during three time points throughout the study
(~ 30 minutes). The interviews also will debrief Helmet-CAM footage
with participants at various mining operations who have agreed to
participate. It also is estimated that a sample of up to 30 mine site
leaders will participate in interviews/focus groups about HSMS
practices at the same mining operations which have agreed to
participate.
The interviews/focus groups also will occur three times during each
of the NIOSH field visits and will take no more than 45 minutes each.
All participants will be between the ages of 18 and 75, currently
employed, and living in the United States. Participation will require
no more than 4.5 hours of workers' time over the six-week intervention
and no more than 2.5 hours of site leaders' time over the six-week
intervention period.
There is no cost to respondents other than their time.
Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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Average
Number of Number of burden per Total burden
Type of respondent Form name respondents responses per response (in hours
respondent hours)
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Mine Site Leaders/Managers.... Mine Recruitment 10 1 5/60 1
Script.
Initial/Mid/Post 10 3 45/60 23
HSMS interview
or focus group.
Mine Worker................... Individual Miner 50 1 5/60 4
Recruitment
Script.
Pre/Post Org 50 2 15/60 25
Perceptions
Survey.
Wear Helmet-CAM 50 3 1 150
during job
cycle.
Pre/Mid/Post 50 3 30/60 75
Behavior and
Helmet-CAM
footage
Interview.
rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Total..................... ................ .............. .............. .............. 278
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[[Page 68449]]
Leroy A. Richardson,
Chief, Information Collection Review Office, Office of Scientific
Integrity,Office of the Associate Director for Science, Office of the
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2014-27018 Filed 11-14-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P