Overall Program Assessment - Agriculture Forestry and Fishing Research at NIOSH - page 49

toward high-priority topics and that activities are consistent with achieving the
program goals. The peer-review process is similarly critical for other extramural
and intramural research projects. Because AFF Program personnel do not directly
manage projects, the only mechanism to ensure that research funding can support
projects related to AFF goals is the inclusion of the priorities in NORA and in the
initial peer-review process that directs funding to the most relevant projects. An
important disadvantage of this approach to project funding is that it assumes an
adequate pool of intramural and extramural investigators who will submit high-
quality proposals that target the priorities of the AFF Program. If for some reason
there are not enough proposals directed toward AFF Program priorities, the fund-
ing is likely to go elsewhere. It seems likely that the NORA 2 sector-based approach
will strongly encourage proposals targeting AFF priorities; under NORA 1, there
were no AFF-specific priorities.

Quality-Assurance Procedures
The AFF Program lacks a program-wide approach to monitoring quality assur-
ance. Quality-assurance controls occur mainly at the beginning of a project through
the peer review of the proposal and the comments of reviewers and toward the later
stages of a project when outputs are typically presented as peer-reviewed manu-
scripts or at professional conferences or meetings where peers have the opportunity
to review and comment. Although opportunities to assess quality through review
of progress reports are needed, there is usually little feedback provided to investiga-
tors through this mechanism. In general, investigators assume the responsibility for
quality assurance and for oversight of a research project that will lead to credible
data, analyses, and conclusions.

Outputs

In the early years of the AFF Program, conferences were the principal mecha-
nism for evaluating progress. The conferences brought together intramural and
extramural investigators to facilitate coordination of activities and promote col-
laboration. The conferences have included the following:

• Surgeon General's Conference on Agricultural Safety and Health (1991)
• Farm Flood Response Workshop—Implications for Agricultural Safety and
Health (1993)
•

First National Conference for NIOSH-Sponsored Centers (1994)

• Second NIOSH Agricultural Health and Safety Conference (1995)

• Third NIOSH Agricultural Health and Safety Conference (1996)