NOTICE OF INTENT TO SOLE SOURCE. This is not a request for competitive proposals/quotes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), hereby announces its intent to issue a sole source order/contract to Environmental Risk Sciences LLP. The NAICS code for this acquisition is 541990 – All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, with a size standard in millions of dollars, $19.5. Background: The Health Hazard Evaluation (HHE) Program helps employees, unions, and employers learn whether health hazards are present at their workplace and recommends ways to reduce hazards and prevent work-related illness or injuries. Our evaluations are done at no cost to the employees, unions, or employers. The HHE program has determined that cumulative risk assessment (CRA) principles should be applied to our exposure assessment work to better our product, our responses to HHE requestors, and to further take CRA principles from theory to application. CRA is an advanced risk assessment approach that has been used in environmental and ecological contexts to evaluate the combined risk from co-exposures to chemical and/or non-chemical stressors. To date, the U.S. EPA has used this approach to characterize the cumulative risks from five classes of pesticides (e.g., organophosphates) that act via the same mechanism of toxicity and for which there are multiple exposure pathways (e.g., dietary, residential). Additional research has explored how to potentially incorporate non-chemical stressors or account for joint toxicological interactions under specific and relatively narrow scenarios. Several peer-reviewed and trade publications, as well as technical presentations given at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition (AIHce) and other scientific conferences, have advocated for the use of CRA methods in occupational contexts over the last decade (including work led or co-authored by NIOSH), but there has thus far been limited progress in applying this methodology in real-world settings such as the HHE program. The project will aim to introduce CRA methods into the HHE program to further advance exposure assessment methods. Scope of Work: The overall goal of this project is to incorporate CRA principles into the HHE program. To achieve this goal, the contract is divided into three main tasks to cover the initial adaptation of CRA principles into the program, specific HHE program staff implementation strategy development, and full CRA implementation into the HHE program. In the initial phase (Initial adaptation CRA principles into the HHE program and training) the contractor shall provide 2 staff trainings (at least one hour in length) either in-person or virtually detailing the fundamentals of CRA and how to incorporate into exposure assessment strategies. The contractor shall also provide an initial adaptation strategy proposal on how the HHE program should adopt CRA principles. During this initial phase, the contractor will work with the HETAB Branch Chief to continue to define the project. Because this project is designing a new methodology and approach for the HHE program, it is difficult to determine absolute parameters because the project is not pre-determined by nature. In the second phase (HHE Program Staff Implementation Strategy Development), the contractor shall provide a summary document of at least one pilot study using an HHE request that has implemented CRA principles. The contractor will work in concert with the HHE program to select the request due to its applicability to the project. The pilot study will focus on the exposure assessment portion of the HHE and will be limited to exposure assessment design from a perspective of hazards, co-exposures, and other CRA measures. The pilot study portion of this project will not involve any human subjects and no personally identifiable information (PII) will be collected, retained, or transmitted back to NIOSH. In the third phase (CRA implementation into the HHE program), the contractor shall provide a final report electronic document including a project summary including the pilot study as well as recommendations for moving the HHE program forward with CRA. The final report will detail all the actions performed under the contract including the pilot study as well as recommendations on how the HHE program should continue to install CRA principles into the program. Travel considerations are covered in the travel section. A determination by the Government not to compete this proposed action will be based on responses to this notice and is solely in the discretion of the Contracting Officer. Information received will be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. All vendors must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) at www.sam.gov. This action is for services which the Government intends to solicit and negotiate with only one source under the authority of FAR 13.106-1(b) and 10 U.S.C. 2304(c)(1). Interested persons may identify their interest and capability to respond to the requirement or submit quotations. This is not a request for competitive quotations ; however, the Government will review any/all product, capabilities, and pricing information submitted prior to the closure of this notice. A determination by the government not to compete this proposed contract based upon responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the government. Information received will normally be considered solely for the purpose of determining whether to conduct a competitive procurement. Any responses should be emailed to Stephanie Reid at
[email protected] by JUL 25, 2023 at 5:00 P.M. ET .