Overall Program Assessment - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 34

adopted by NIOSH to characterize the steps in the committee's work. An exami-
nation of goals, inputs, activities, and outputs was used to assess the relevance of
the program's research. Intermediate outcomes and end outcomes were examined
to evaluate the impact of the program's research. Illustrative examples of each of
those terms, as defined by the Framework Document and used in this report, are
provided in Box 3-2.
Evaluation of Strategic Goals and Objectives
The AFF Program's stated goals are general and appear appropriately aligned
with congressional mandate, but they do not include specific measurable objectives
that would guide the subprograms and allow for assessment of progress. Further-
more, it does not appear that strategic goals have been developed specifically for
each sector, that is, agriculture, forestry, and fishing. The committee requested
additional information from NIOSH regarding the strategic plan for the AFF sub-
programs and questioned whether there were separate plans for each sector. The
NIOSH response indicated that although a series of informal planning meetings
focusing on safety and health research in agriculture was organized in the early
1990s, management of the resulting projects followed the established process and
structure: projects were primarily investigator-initiated and proposed to meet
needs described in general plans but with very little institute-wide tactical planning
or programmatic management. Each NIOSH division then made annual continua-
tion and funding decisions on the basis of perceived need on a project-by-project
basis (NIOSH Response to Committee Questions 1-3, see Appendix C).
In 1996, on the basis of input from more than 500 stakeholders, NIOSH
presented the National Occupational Research Agenda (NORA) that identified
21 priority research areas in the broad categories of Disease and Injury, Work En-
vironment and Workforce, and Research Tools and Approaches. Priority research
included traumatic injuries, special populations at risk, control technology and
personal protective equipment, intervention effectiveness research, and surveillance
research methods. It appears that NORA was used in lieu of a more formalized
sector-specific strategic planning process for the first decade (1996-2005).
NORA repeatedly raised the question of sector-specific research (NORA, 2000).
NIOSH decided that the most effective way to integrate consideration of research
in specific sectors was to apply a “matrix approach” of coordinated research in
some or all of the 21 priority areas for each sector. As evidence of the success of
that approach, NIOSH presented data showing roughly half the NIOSH NORA
research funds for FY 2000 going to agriculture ($8.3 million), construction ($9.3
million), mining ($12 million), and healthcare ($5.1 million). However, it is not
clear whether funds spent in those sectors were directed toward projects that would