[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 38 (Thursday, February 26, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10491-10492]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-03949]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
[CDC-2015-0005, Docket Number NIOSH-281]
Future Directions for the Surveillance of Agricultural Injuries;
Public Meeting; Request for Comments
AGENCY: National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS).
ACTION: Notice of public meeting and request for comment.
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SUMMARY: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health of
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announces a public
meeting and an opportunity to comment on future directions for the
surveillance of injuries within the agricultural production industry.
To view the notice and related materials visit http://www.regulations.gov and enter CDC-2015-0005 in the search field and
click ``Search.''
Public comment period: Comments must be received May 27, 2015.
Table of Contents
DATE
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION
I. Background
II. Public Meeting
III. Written Comments
DATES: A public meeting will be held on March 30, 2015, 1:00 p.m.-5:00
p.m. Eastern Time, or after the last public commenter has spoken,
whichever occurs first. The public meeting will be held as a web-based
conference only available by remote access.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Kitty Hendricks, Division of Safety
Research, 1095 Willowdale Road, MS 1808, Morgantown, West Virginia
26505-2888, (304) 285-5916 (not a toll free number) or
[email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background: NIOSH began a coordinated program in 1990 to address
safety and health issues for workers and families in the US
agricultural production industry. In support of this program, NIOSH
established an ongoing, national-level surveillance system to monitor
injuries to hired farm workers, farmers, and farm family members. Data
for the injury surveillance system are primarily collected through
surveys funded by NIOSH and conducted by the US Department of
Agriculture's National Agricultural Statistics Service (USDA-NASS) and
the US Department of Labor (DOL). These surveillance data are used by
NIOSH and others to estimate injuries and injury rates and identify
safety hazards that increase injury risk.
Surveillance data have also been used to show that the US
agricultural production industry has changed. Over the past quarter
century, both the size of the workforce and the number of injuries have
declined. To maintain statistically stable injury estimates with the
current approach of national-level surveys, sample sizes would need to
be increased. As a result, this approach has become more resource-
intensive and is no longer tenable for NIOSH.
Beginning in 2015, NIOSH will not reestablish interagency
agreements with USDA-NASS and DOL to collect survey data for the
agricultural injury surveillance system. This change in surveillance
approach presents an opportunity for NIOSH to receive stakeholder input
and rigorously examine future options for agricultural injury
surveillance.
To identify and assess different options, NIOSH plans the following
activities: Hold the public meeting announced in this notice to
initiate a national conversation regarding future agricultural injury
surveillance; seek additional public comments through this docket on
the most urgent priorities for injury surveillance in production
agriculture; examine what NIOSH and agricultural injury stakeholders
can do to meet the overall need for agricultural injury surveillance;
support a comprehensive, independent assessment of recommendations
resulting from a 2007 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) review and a
2012 follow-up independent panel review; continue to engage with
interested parties as NIOSH plans its own future directions for
agricultural injury surveillance; and seek input on the need for a
follow-up public meeting in Fall 2015 to discuss NIOSH's future plans
after having considered input received through the public meeting and
public comment period.
NIOSH is especially interested in comments related to finding new
ways of doing surveillance using smarter, more cost-effective
approaches; shifting surveillance from national to regional or local
approaches, in recognition of the diversity of agricultural types in
different parts of the country; and examining roles that partners can
take to address the need for smarter agricultural injury surveillance.
[[Page 10492]]
II. Public Meeting: NIOSH will hold a public meeting to allow for
comments on future directions for surveillance of injuries within the
agricultural production industry. The meeting is open to the public,
limited only by the capacity of 100 connections to the Web based
conference.
Confirm your attendance to this meeting by sending an email to
[email protected] by March 16, 2015. An email confirming registration
will be sent from NIOSH and will include details needed to participate.
Requests to make presentations at the public meeting should be
emailed to [email protected] by March 16, 2015. All requests to present
should contain the name, address, telephone number, and relevant
business affiliations of the presenter. Presenters will be assigned a
10-minute slot on the agenda. Presenters who wish to use slides must
email an electronic file in Microsoft PowerPoint format to
[email protected] by March 16, 2015. An email confirming the
presentation request will be sent from NIOSH and will include details
needed to present and an approximate start time for the presentation.
If a presenter is not in attendance when his/her presentation is
scheduled to begin, the remaining presenters will be heard in order.
After the last scheduled presenter is heard, those who missed their
opportunity may be allowed to present, limited by time available.
Attendees who wish to speak, but did not submit a request for the
opportunity to make a presentation, may be given this opportunity after
the scheduled presenters are heard, at the discretion of the presiding
officer and limited by time available.
The public meeting, including all presentations and slides, will be
recorded, transcribed, and posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided.
III. Written Comments: You may submit comments, identified by CDC-
2015-0005 and Docket Number NIOSH-281, by either of the following
methods:
Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov
Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
Mail: National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health, NIOSH Docket Office, 1090 Tusculum Avenue MS C-34, Cincinnati,
Ohio 45226-1998.
All information received in response to this notice must include
the agency name and docket number [CDC-2015-0005; NIOSH-281]. All
relevant comments received will be posted without change to http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided. All
electronic comments should be formatted as Microsoft Word. All
information received in response to this notice will also be available
for public examination and copying at the NIOSH Docket Office, 1150
Tusculum Avenue, Room 155, Cincinnati, Ohio 45226-1998.
Dated: February 18, 2015.
John Howard,
Director, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2015-03949 Filed 2-25-15; 8:45 am]
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