National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health

 The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (also referred to as the Advisory Board or the Board) was established by the President on December 7, 2000.  The Advisory Board advises the Secretary of Department Health and Human Services on dose reconstruction methods, adding additional classes of Special Exposure Cohorts to EEOICPA, scientific validity and the quality of NIOSH's dose reconstructions.

 

NIOSH Ombudsman

Denise Brock is the NIOSH Ombudsman.  Ms Brock assists individuals with issues on the SEC petition process as well as the dose reconstruction process.  Ms. Brock has been an outspoken and effective advocate for workers for many years. She is the daughter of former uranium workers from the Mallinckrodt Chemical Plant in St. Louis, Missouri. She has extensive experience and expertise in preparing and filing SEC petitions  and filed the first SEC petition which led to workers at the Mallinckrodt Chemical Plant being  the first class of workers added to the SEC.  Ms Brock has acted as not only a worker advocate but was asked to testify before the Judiciary Committee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims, U.S. House of Representatives, Hearing on Implementation of The Act in an effort to bring forward ideas to help change the program to better serve the needs of the workers.

You may contact Ms. Brock by email at CKO7@cdc.gov.

Dose Reconstruction

When a claimant files an EEOICPA claim with Department of Labor's (DOL) Division of Energy Employee Occupational Illness Compensation (DEEOIC), if one of the illnesses claimed is a cancer, DEEOIC sends the claim to NIOSH for a dose reconstruction.  NIOSH, using information from the claimant, DEEOIC, DOE work records, Site Profiles, Technical Basis Documents, and Technical Information Bulletins, then estimates the  amount of radiation the worker was exposed to and comes up with a percentage of probability (Probability of Causation-PC) that the worker's radiation exposure at the DOE facility caused the cancer. For NIOSH to recommend that a claim to be accepted the PC must be 50% or higher. The dose estimate is then returned to DEEOIC for the final determination.

Special Exposure Cohort

When NIOSH is unable to feasibly estimate the amount of radiation a DOE employee was exposed to and there is a reasonable likelihood that the radiation may have harmed the workers health a Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) is established.  This means that if a worker has worked at least 250 days at a covered DOE facility and has one of 22 specified cancers the process for claim approval is streamlined under Part B.

Work Site Information

NIOSH has developed information on many of the covered EEOICPA facilities to assist with dose reconstructions and Special Exposure Cohorts (SEC).  If the worker’s personal radiation information from DOE is incomplete, NIOSH will use other sources to estimate the radiation dose. This may involve using technical documents called Site Profiles, Technical Basis Documents, and Technical Information Bulletins.  Program Evaluation Report (PER) detail the effect, if any, of the new information on the completed dose reconstruction. The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health also forms Work Groups to investigate issues concerning dose reconstruction or SECs.

NIOSH Reports to Congress

NIOSH is required to provide Congress with reports on NIOSH's ability to obtain the information necessary to complete radiation dose reconstructions,  NIOSH has also done additional reports, including one which recommended that basal cell carcinoma be added to the list of 22 covered cancers, reports on SEC petition status, and residual radioactive and beryllium contamination at facilities.

Joint Outreach Task Group (JOTG)

The Joint Outreach Task Group (JOTG) includes representatives from DOE, Department of Labor (DOL), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the Offices of the Ombudsman for DOL and NIOSH, and the DOE-funded Former Worker Program (FWP) projects. The JOTG was established in 2009 under the premise that agencies/programs with common goals can work together by combining resources and coordinating outreach efforts. Each involved agency has a different mission, but the missions are complementary. By working together, the agencies are better able to serve the DOE workforce.

JOTG developed a series of seven videos to help the public learn more about the roles of the various federal agencies involved in EEOICPA.