NIOSH Announces Results of FY2011 Intramural Research Competition

Contact: Fred Blosser, (202) 245-0645
August 2, 2010

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) today announced that 14 NIOSH intramural research projects will be funded in Fiscal Year 2011 under the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA). These proposals support moving research into practice, focusing on priority needs in the NORA sectors. The selected projects will be conducted internally by NIOSH. They were chosen competitively from a larger array of internal projects for which NIOSH researchers applied for NORA funding. The final selections were made following peer review by experts from outside NIOSH, based on scientific and technical merit. The approved projects are expected to make substantial contributions to workplace safety and health. They focus on research addressing high-priority needs, as determined by injury and illness surveillance information and the National Sector Agendas developed by the NORA Sector Councils. The projects will add to the scientific knowledge necessary for better identifying, understanding, and controlling hazards in a wide range of industries, including construction, healthcare, manufacturing, mining, public safety, transportation, and wholesale and retail trade.

"As new industries and technologies emerge, as traditional industries evolve to meet the demands of the 21st Century, and as the workforce becomes increasingly diverse, we and our partners face an increasingly broad and increasingly complex array of research challenges,” said NIOSH Director John Howard, M.D. "The fundamental value of NORA in helping us to set priorities and advance results-driven research is apparent in these 14 intramural projects that will be funded under NORA next year.”

All project proposals were received by March 1, 2010, as a result of a July 6, 2009, solicitation. Thirty-one project proposals were peer reviewed by experts in three panels. The NORA Secondary Review Committee reviewed the external peer review results, input from NIOSH laboratories and divisions and from NIOSH program leaders, and made funding recommendations based on this information.

The list of approved projects follows. For further information about NIOSH research and recommendations for preventing work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths, visit the NIOSH Web site at www.cdc.gov/niosh. Further information about NORA is available at www.cdc.gov/niosh/nora/.