Program Scoring and Rationale - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 144

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Program Scoring and Rationale
The committee was charged with evaluating the relevance and impact of the
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Agriculture, For-
estry, and Fishing Research Program (AFF Program) on an integer scale of 1-5.
Following the guidelines and questions provided in the Framework Document
(Appendix A), the committee used its expert judgment to rate the relevance and
impact of the overall research program by summarizing its assessment of the major
subprograms before arriving at overall scores for relevance and impact.
The Framework Document does not prescribe a method for arriving at an over-
all quantitative score on the basis of qualitative evaluations of separate subprogram
areas; it allows individual evaluation committees to tailor the scoring process. The
present committee considered many ways of determining a single score to convey
the relevance and impact of the program in its entirety. It originally considered
assigning numeric scores to each of the three sectors but decided, because the AFF
Program devoted most of its efforts to agricultural safety and health, that individual
scores for forestry and fishing safety and health would be difficult to interpret.
The committee decided to reach a single score that included consideration of the
successes of the forestry and fishing safety and health subprograms in spite of the
much smaller amount of funds and personnel committed to them. The assessment
of those subprograms was based primarily on input received from experts on safety
and health in the forestry and fishing sectors, as well as its review of the documen-
tation on the subprograms and the NIOSH Centers for Agricultural Disease and
Injury Research, Education, and Prevention (Ag Centers).
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