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Dose Reconstruction Production

In the early days of the NIOSH Dose Reconstruction Program, it was not unusual for dose reconstructions to take considerable time (sometimes several years) to complete.

The Department of Labor (DOL) began accepting claim applications on July 31, 2001, and sent the first batch of cases to NIOSH for dose reconstruction on October 11, 2001.

However, the responsibilities given to NIOSH for the compensation program were new to the agency at that time. The infrastructure, rules and regulations, technical documents, and other processes and procedures needed for dose reconstruction were not yet in place.

NIOSH’s dose reconstruction program has matured over time through the development of:

  • more than 250 technical documents (Site Profiles, Technical Basis Documents, and Technical Information Bulletins)
  • efficient methods, tools, and techniques
  • standardization of the methods, procedures, and reports used in dose reconstruction

As a result, the average number of days needed to process dose reconstructions for initial referrals (see Figure 1) have decreased.

Bar chart showing a descending trend in the average number of days it takes to process a dose reconstruction

Figure 1: Average time per year for processing cases, reported as number of days between referral from DOL and return of the final dose reconstruction report. There is no year for which all the returned cases are done, so if reported at a different date, average processing times will likely be different. The data shown are current as of May 12, 2017.

The Case Statistics page of our website provides detailed information on the following:

  • cases referred to NIOSH by DOL
  • cases currently returned to DOL
  • cases currently administratively closed by NIOSH
  • cases currently at NIOSH

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