SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520), Federal agencies must obtain approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for each collection of information they conduct or sponsor. In addition, the PRA also requires Federal agencies to provide a 60-day notice in the Federal Register concerning each proposed collection of information, including each new proposed collection, each proposed extension of existing collection of information, and each reinstatement of previously approved information collection before submitting the collection to the OMB for approval. To comply with this requirement, we are publishing this notice of a proposed data collection as described below.

The OMB is particularly interested in comments that will help:

1. Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information will have practical utility;

2. Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions used;

3. Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and

4. Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submissions of responses.

5. Assess information collection costs.

Proposed Project

Pre-shift Lighting Interventions to Improve Miner Safety and Well-being—New—National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health seeks a two-year approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to collect information needed to develop strategies and guidance to improve the safety, health, and well-being of underground coal and metal shiftworkers in the U.S. mining industry. Light has both visual and non-visual impacts on the human body, enabling us to visually perceive the world, and non-visually experience circadian entrainment and acute effects that include alertness, concentration, and performance on cognitive tasks. Hence, light drives our fundamental physiological functioning.

It is not surprising that underground miners have significant reductions in exposure to daylight—especially those miners working shifts. This lacking exposure can lead to fatigue and circadian disruption (CD) that can result in sleep loss and reduced alertness. This increases the risk of accidents, and can lead to health problems that include obesity, diabetes, and cancer.

This study will evaluate the impacts of blue and red-light treatment at the beginning of the work shift on task performance, sleepiness and alertness, subjective well-being, sleep efficiency and circadian rhythms in underground mine workers. A 2x2 randomized crossover, mixed design will be used to test the efficacy and acceptability an HCL intervention using light-emitting eyewear delivered to shift workers over a two-year study period. A cross-over design has a significant advantage because the subjects serve as their own control, which serves to minimize variations caused by circadian phase differences and sleep patterns of the individual participants. The other advantages include greater sample size efficiency with randomization of treatment order, and all subjects will receive all the treatments. Participants will be divided between coal and metal miners, and will be those who regularly work the 1st, 2nd and 3rd shifts at one underground coal and one underground metal mine.

NIOSH researchers will visit one underground coal mine and one underground metal mine to obtain informed consent from volunteer mineworkers to conduct an intervention study and administer both electronic and paper and pencil surveys. Before beginning the study, the respondents will provide their informed consent to participate, be given an overview of the demographic information that will be collected and will be instructed how to ( printed page 14925) properly wear the lighted eyewear and how to use the actigraphy device. Next, participants will be asked to complete six short surveys: (1) Demographic information; (2) the Checklist of Individual Strengths; (3) the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS); (4) the Munich Chronotype Questionnaire; (5) the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI); (6) a shiftwork disorder screening; (7) the Lighted Eyeglasses Intervention Acceptability Survey, and (8) the NASA Psychomotor Vigilance Test (PVT). They will also be asked to log caffeine intake and sleep.

Intervention lighting doses will be administered via commercially available lightweight, light-emitting glasses during the nonworking periods of pre-shift. Each participant will experience two lighting interventions: Treatment A is dim red light (10 lx, 3000 K, the placebo control), and treatment B is blue-enriched, polychromatic lighting, the treatment intervention. For each study group, half of the subjects will first experience the blue, and half will first experience the red-light exposure during a three-week experimental phase. After a two-week washout period designed to minimize carryover or residual learning effects from the prior treatments, subjects will experience the lighting treatment condition they did not yet experience for another three-week period. While wearing lighted eyewear the participants will evaluate comfort, glare and acceptability of the eyewear, while the KSS, the PSQI, and the NASA PVT will be re-administered at various intervals throughout the course of the study.

The total number of responses for each data collection instrument are indicated in the estimated annualized burden hours table below. Survey data will be collected during pre-shift periods and at home on working days and at home on non-working days. Time for data collection at the beginning of the shift will be no more than 25 minutes. NIOSH researchers will collect data at participating sites in above ground facilities on working days. Participants will also complete brief caffeine and sleep logs and wear an actigraphy wristband that records activity and sleep patterns, and light/dark exposure while at home. At various intervals of the study for a total of 12 occasions, participants will swallow a remote temperature monitoring pill to assess circadian rhythms in core body temperature. It is estimated that at-home data collection time will be no more than five minutes per participant.

This data collection will occur within a two-year period beginning after OMB approval and is designed to gather information not previously available. This lighting intervention with these data collection instruments is not being used in any other research in the mining industry. Potential impacts of this project include improvement of the health, safety, and well-being of underground mineworkers by reducing fatigue and CD through new recommendations and HCL-interventions. This project will also answer several research questions that will help establish the efficacy of the new HCL interventions so that they could be commercialized by mine lighting companies and used by underground coal and metal mining companies. The total estimated annualized burden hours are 910. There are no costs to respondents other than their time.