COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION DISSEMINATION

Inputs: NIOSH Strategic Goals

Communication and Information Dissemination Strategic Goals

The NIOSH Communication and Information Dissemination Program developed strategic goals to guide our research and partnership efforts over the next decade.

Strategic Goal 1: Raise awareness of evidence-based knowledge and practices through the timely development of research communication products including guidelines and training materials to reduce work-related injury, illness, and death.

Strategic Goal 2: Increase the adoption of evidenced-based knowledge and practices through communication interventions to reduce work-related injury, illness, and death.

Strategic Goal 3: Ensure strategic partnerships and collaborations to disseminate, and diffuse evidenced-based practices to prevent work-related illness, injury, and death.

Strategic Goal 4: Foster the evaluation of communication materials, strategies, and interventions to reduce work-related illness, injury, and death.

Strategic Goal 5: Use communication research to drive the dissemination, diffusion, and adoption of evidenced-based practices to reduce work-related illness, injury, and death.

An interactive web site that allows you to browse through all NORA Communication and Information Dissemination Program Goals and associated projects.

Those seeking NIOSH grants to conduct studies benefiting workers in the communication and information dissemination cross- sector can view the current funding opportunities.

NIOSH is interested in your opinions about the relevance and value of these strategic goals for the communication and information dissemination cross-sector. We encourage you to consider partnering with us on issues of interest to you and your organization.

NIOSH Program Portfolio Approach

NIOSH previously used priority topic areas (e.g., traumatic injury, hearing loss) to guide research efforts. Goals take this approach a step further by identifying specific outcomes that NIOSH wants to target, performance measures for evaluating progress in meeting the outcome goals, and intermediate goals to describe the necessary steps that need to be performed to accomplish the goal. Setting goals is challenging for the following reasons:

• It forces us to focus on a subgroup of issues where we think NIOSH can make an impact - a long list would spread our resources too thin to accomplish the goals. Not every worthwhile topic can be included.
• It is difficult to develop performance measures. Available injury statistics have limitations, and exposure and health outcome measures are typically not available.
• It is ambitious for NIOSH to set goals to achieve outcomes such as reductions in a national fatality rate. NIOSH is a research agency, so we don't often directly influence outcomes - we must partner well and influence other groups to show results.

NIOSH has been organizing research, guidance, information, and service efforts into specific programs that can be readily communicated and strategically governed and evaluated. Ten Sector Programs represent industrial sectors, and twenty-four Cross-sector Programs organized around adverse health outcomes, statutory programs and global efforts.

The Sector Programs intersect with Cross-Sector Programs in a matrix-like fashion. For example, an Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing Program goal of reducing farm-related deaths and injuries due to tractor rollovers and trucks would likely be a shared goal with the Transportation Program and if appropriate would be adopted by both programs. This approach provides an added advantage and will allow multiple Programs to work towards accomplishment of intersecting goals.

Each of the 34 programs in the NIOSH Program Portfolio has a Manager and Coordinator. Each of the 10 NIOSH Sector Programs facilitates the work of a NORA Sector Council to engage external stakeholders in the process of developing sector goals for the nation and methods to measure the short-term, intermediate and long-term outcomes arising from those goals. The NORA goals for the nation will be considered when choosing NIOSH sector program goals. Cross Sector programs have internal Steering Committees that develop program goals and monitor outcome measures.

These planning efforts will position NIOSH to align with the most current governmental approaches for evaluating program effectiveness, i.e., the Program Assessment Rating Tool (or PART). PART is a mechanism to hold governmental agencies accountable for accomplishing results. As part of our comprehensive approach to performance measurement, NIOSH has engaged the National Academies to independently evaluate our sector and cross-programs for relevance and impact.