NIOSH research

    I just noticed that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health has a grant opportunity entitled "Prevention of Airborne Infections in Occupational Settings". The grants are due tomorrow. What was interesting for me were they types of topics areas NIOSH was interested in.

Quote from the grant request:

Some examples of research areas appropriate for this RFA include, but are not limited to the following:

*Development of improved strategies for early identification and isolation of infectious cases.
*Development of improved approaches to detect and quantify airborne infectious agents and settled infectious agents with potential for re-aerosolization.
*Studies establishing exposure-response relationships for induction of disease by airborne infectious agents.
*Characterization of infectious aerosols generated by infectious people, biological weapons systems, or other sources.
*Determination of infectious aerosol size distribution and impact of factors such as temperature, humidity and UV irradiation on aerodynamic properties, viability and infectivity of these aerosols. Elucidating factors that affect re-aerosolization of settled agents. Developing approaches to predicting the relative importance of airborne and contact disease transmission. Engineering controls such as optimization of ventilation and other building characteristics, and UV germicidal irradiation.
*Issues in use of respirators to prevent transmission of airborne infectious diseases such as fit testing methods and interpretation, respirator selection, and innovative approaches to enable longer use or re-use of respirators when they are in short supply.


While the purpose of the grant section leaned heavily regarding bioterrorism (anthrax, etc), the topics above would be very relevent to an influenza pandemic. I also thought the last topic was important because so many health care workers will have issues related to lack of respirators.

http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OH-06-002.html