Recommendations for Program Improvement - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 183

the person in charge of each arm would have a fair amount of responsibility and
latitude to make appropriate decisions. The management matrix or organization
structure should be flexible so that the AFF research teams can recognize and re-
act quickly to changes in the AFF industries, the economy, new technologies, and
relevant results of research in other programs, and managed in such a way that
AFF research teams are encouraged to be proactive in anticipating and mitigating
emerging risks and hazards.
Improve Program Documentation
NIOSH should move expeditiously to create a plan for open sharing of sci-
entific information and best practices from past, present, and future intramural
and extramural projects. To achieve that goal, the existing electronic centralized
archival repository should be enhanced and be made more user-friendly. To facili-
tate the creation and maintenance of the archival repository, every project should
be required to have an electronic submission form that permits information to be
automatically uploaded into the repository within 90 days after project completion.
Additional outputs include publications resulting from the research. The central-
ized repository should be easily accessible to researchers and to the general public.
Search tools should be developed by NIOSH and made available to researchers.
An incentive to do that will be to have publications and project reports listed
with popular search engines so that they can be found and cited in the literature.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/NIOSH will have oversight and
responsibility for the maintenance of this database.
The National Agricultural Safety Database (NASD) is a unique and valuable
resource, but it is used by only 34 states. All states are represented by the NIOSH
Centers for Agricultural Disease and Injury Research, Education, and Prevention
(Ag Centers), and every state should be connected to the NASD. Information should
be regularly evaluated and added to the database. The NASD could become the
networking center for conferences, data, safety information, and research results.
1.b: The AFF Program should develop a comprehensive program evalu-
ation mechanism to assess and set priorities among its research and transfer
activities. It is important that effective evaluation be conducted as indicated in
the logic model (Figure A-1). That cannot be accomplished in the absence of
specific strategic goals against which progress can be measured. All aspects of the
programs—including activities, outputs, and outcomes—should be systematically
evaluated for relevance and impact. Assessment of program impact and feedback
into the priority-setting process is essential because it leads to the identification
of best practices. An evaluation process, such as the CDC Framework for Program