Emerging Issues Mini-Grants
The Northeast Center for Agricultural and Occupational Health
Project Proposal Invitation
2012 Emerging Issues in Farm, Forestry and Fishing Health
and Safety Mini-Grants
The Northeast Center (NEC) is one of ten regional NIOSH research and outreach centers dedicated to improving the health and safety of farmers, fishermen and foresters in the U.S.. NEC works throughout the Northeast conducting research, engaging in preventive teaching, offering health screenings, and building partnerships to mitigate hazards and exposures associated with these industries.
In an effort to continue to improve the health and safety of agriculture, forestry and fishing workers, the NEC is offering three $15,000 mini-grants for one-year research projects. These projects are intended to help investigators lay the groundwork for more expansive, multi-year research projects and to identify emerging health and safety issues, as well as innovative and effective means for preventing them.
Proposals that address newly emerging health threats or vulnerable populations will be given special consideration, as will proposals that employ innovative approaches or technologies.
Examples of each that pertain to northeastern agriculture are:
-Newly emerging health threats: natural disasters, impacts of increasing population density in agricultural regions (such as traffic injuries), zoonotic disease, falls
-Newly emerging vulnerable populations: small direct to market farm operations, new foreign-born worker populations (e.g. Burmese workers), farms recovering from natural disaster
-Innovative approaches: new communications channels, new motivational strategies, community-defined topics and strategies, methods for moving safety improvements into the marketplace (emphasis on manufacture and marketing phases and researcher/industry collaborations)
-New technologies: internet, social media, sensor technologies, cellular and GPS technologies, computer modeling of hazard exposures or work-related risk behaviors, the development of new tools to fit the evolution of work tasks and technology for farmers / farmworkers, commercial fishermen.
Based on the NEC's region of operation, proposals will be mainly solicited from new and experienced researchers conducting research in the following Northeastern states: ME, MA, NH, VT, CT, RI, DE, NY, PA, MD, NJ. Proposal reviews will focus on: innovation, significance of the health/safety issue, cost-efficiency, identification of new or emerging issues, the likelihood of leading to more expansive research and overlap with the overall goals of the NEC. All NEC mini-grant reviews will be conducted without identifiers.
Interested applicants should fill out the NEC Emerging Issues Mini-grant cover sheet, proposal and budget form which can be found on the NEC/NYCAMH website at http://www.nycamh.org/about/ opportunities/. A copy of NEC Priorities/Areas of Interest is included with these mini-grant documents to aid potential applicants in assessing the viability of their proposals. NOTE: All NEC Emerging Issues Mini-grant recipients will need to obtain Human Subjects research approval. Recipients will also be required to share their research results at the annual NEC Research Symposium and to provide a final research report.
Proposals (which should include the Mini-grant cover sheet, the proposal form without identifiers, the budget form and a biosketch or CV) should be e-mailed to Sue Ackerman, the NEC Center Manager at sackerman@nycamh.com. Questions can also be directed to Sue Ackerman at 607-547-6023, or sackerman@nycamh.com. Applications will be accepted immediately. Recipients of this notice should feel free to circulate this information to other potentially interested researchers or agricultural health and safety specialists. The deadline for 2012 proposals will be November 15th, 2011, the notice of grant award will be sent Dec. 15th, 2011 and the grant start date will be January 10th, 2012.
The Northeast Center/NYCAMH
One Atwell Road Cooperstown, New York 13326
Phone: 1-800-343-7527, Fax: 1-607-547-6087
www.nycamh.com
NEC Priorities/ Areas of Interest