3064.0: Monday, October 22, 2001 - Table 11

Abstract #32197

National occupational research agenda (NORA) at mid-life

Rosemary Sokas, MD, MOH, NIOSH, Hubert H. Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, DC 20201, 202-205-8556, rrs8@cdc.gov

In 1996 the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health unveiled an occupational safety and health research agenda that had been the product of a year-long stakeholder process involving over 500 institutions and individuals from academia, labor, industry and other federal and state government agencies. Twenty-one priority areas emerged that represented serious issues likely to be responsive to concerted research efforts but traditionally not adequately studied; twenty teams (the priority areas for upper extremity and lower back musculoskeletal disorders were merged into one team) have worked to keep widespread stakeholder involvement, identify and implement partnerships, and leverage resources to target the 21 NORA priority areas. These range from the relatively straightforward, such as Teams targeting disease and injury, (e.g., fertility and pregnancy abnormalities, hearing loss, traumatic injuries), to those focused on emerging issues in the work environment and workforce (e.g., mixed exposures, organization of work, special populations at risk), to the need for new research tools and approaches (e.g., health services research, risk assessment methods, social and economic consequences of workplace illness and injury). What are the products so far? What are the successes and the failures? What lessons have been learned? What is happening and what is changing? The roundtable participants will share their experiences as NORA Team leaders. This will be an interactive session with an emphasis on questions and answers; the final third of the session will be reserved for individual audience discussions with Team leaders and representatives.

Learning Objectives: Participants will learn what concrete products have come out of NORA to date, what the program's successes and failures have been and what lessons have been learned.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: NIOSH
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

The 129th Annual Meeting of APHA