OSHA Economic and Analytical Support. Cloudburst has been awarded a blanket purchase agreement (BPA) to provide economic and other analytical support to OSHA's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration and Management.  Under the agreement, awarded under a competitive 8(a) process, Cloudburst will conduct regulatory impact analyses and economic analyses of proposed and final regulations and standards, of revisions to regulations and standards, and of regulatory and non-regulatory effects on small businesses and other small entities.  Cloudburst is to provide the following services under this contract: (1) collect and analyze information and data that the Agency relies on for setting its rulemaking priorities and evaluating safety and health conditions in the workplace; (2) for proposed and final standards, determine levels of current compliance by industry and size of establishment with sufficient degrees of accuracy and disaggregation to fulfill the requirements of the regulatory process; (3) summarize, analyze, and appropriately utilize data and comments submitted by the public to the rulemaking record; (4) assess the technological and economic feasibility, compliance costs, and economic impacts of proposed health and safety regulations and their alternatives on all establishments and especially on small entities; (5) estimate benefits, relative cost-effectiveness, environmental impact, degree of risk, and potential for risk reduction associated with regulatory requirements and alternative approaches; (6) conduct research, analysis, and other work to fulfill Agency rulemaking requirements regarding small businesses and to provide support in other Agency matters related to small businesses; (7) prepare materials and systems to help employers comply in the most cost-effective manner with existing and new OSHA regulations; (8) conduct and review studies and evaluations of OSHA regulatory policy issues, causes of occupational risks and hazards, and opportunities and obstacles to risk reduction; and (9) conduct retrospective studies and evaluations of current OSHA programs.

OSHA Guidance and Docket Management. Cloudburst was recently awarded a contract with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a unit of the Department of Labor, to provide technical support for rulemaking activities and guidance.  Under this contract Cloudburst will conduct research to develop quantitative risk assessments for health hazards such as chemicals, biological agents and physical hazards; coordinate peer reviews of agency scientific assessments; conduct research to analyze the feasibility of reductions in exposure to chemicals, biological agents and physical hazards; and preparing other written materials to support the rulemaking process.  Specifically, Cloudburst supports OSHA in the following ways under the contract:  Comparing observed health effects, injury and illness data, and industrial hygiene and safety practices among several industry sectors; Analyzing public comments received in response to Advance Notices of Proposed Rulemaking, Requests for Information and Proposed rules concerning the selection of permissible exposure limits and action levels,  adoption of consensus standards, and other regulatory provisions such as provisions for hygiene facilities, medical surveillance, exposure assessment, training, hazard communications, compliance plans, fire protection, and electrical safety; Analyzing public comment on draft guidance documents to ensure that such documents accurately reflect the state-of-the-art in controlling various occupational hazards, ensuring that the language is appropriate for identified target audience(s); Developing and editing preambles, questions for comment, requests for information, text of appendices, and other information related to the regulations and guidance products; Providing the services of recognized experts in subjects relevant to OSHA standards and guidance products; Analyzing various recommended strategies for reducing risks, identifying the most effective strategies, and assessing the limitations of control methods; Conducting site visits and industry studies to collect information on current exposures and effective control strategies to estimate populations at risk and to assemble data on the potential affects of future standards and guidance products; Identifying methodologies for facilitating the development of standards and guidance; Developing information, strategies, research needs, issue papers, testing protocols, or regulatory and non-regulatory options in the areas related to standards and guidance; Appearing and testifying/presenting information at rulemaking hearings and other meetings regarding work that the Contractor has performed for OSHA under this contract; Assisting in the review of current regulations, consensus standards, or existing guidance materials including soliciting comments on existing standards and guidance, consolidating and analyzing comments, identifying appropriate changes and prioritizing revisions; Coordinating outside peer reviews of technical assessments and analyses critical to developing standards and guidance in conformance with OMB’s Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review, including identifying and securing expert reviewers and evaluating potential conflicts of interest to ensure a balanced peer review reflecting diverse perspectives; Assisting in developing information and statements in support of DSG positions on interagency committee matters and in response to requests from Congress and OSHA partners inside and outside the regulated community; Estimating the benefits and relative cost effectiveness of a potential standard or guidance activity; Preparing exposure profiles of current employee exposures to various occupational hazards; Prepare industry profiles identifying processes where various occupational hazards are found and employment levels and financial characteristics of establishments potentially affected by OSHA standards and guidance products; Determining costs and impacts on small firms, including analyzing alternatives that can alleviate impacts on small firms, and preparing materials to help employers comply with/implement, in the most cost-effective manner, existing and new OSHA standards and guidance; Determining the economic and technological feasibility, compliance costs, and economic impacts of a proposed standard (and guidance when applicable) and its alternatives; Reviewing/evaluating/updating economic studies produced by other contractors or OSHA; Analyzing information requirements and develop improved methods for acquiring, indexing, and extracting needed information for the development of OSHA standards and guidance materials; Cross referencing available data by type of hazard and type of industry; Performing literature searches and data analyses to augment the existing reference material/literature in areas where deficiencies are perceived; Retrieving and providing copies of identified literature relevant to specific standards and guidance products; Summarizing literature on specific topics; Providing logistics support for advisory committee meetings; including assistance in arranging for accommodations and travel of committee members, preparing and distributing materials for the meetings; and assisting in preparing meeting announcements and meeting minutes; Evaluating commercially available computer software to be used in the development of an information retrieval system for docket submissions and provide training and information to regulatory DSG staff on the use of the software; and Providing assistance with abstracting and summarizing testimony and comments submitted to the docket.

Children’s Legacy Study.  Cloudburst was awarded a subcontract through CNA to provide support for their 8-1/2 year contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to conduct the Legacy for Children Longitudinal Follow-up Study. CNA will evaluate the cognitive, social, and emotional development of children at ages 8, 10 and 12 from both intervention and comparison families. The study’s findings will inform public policies aimed at improving the success of disadvantaged children in school and in life. The Cloudburst Group will provide logistical support to CNA as it convenes and manages a panel of researchers to provide direction and support to the study.

The study, to be carried out under the leadership of Dr. Sarah Friedman, Associate Director of the CNA Health Research & Policy, will follow the development of children whose mothers participated in a parenting skills intervention effort aimed at improving children's developmental outcomes by fostering their mothers' sense of community, parenting self-efficacy, and parent-child positive interaction.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has initiated Legacy for Children™, a set of longitudinal, randomized, controlled studies examining the potential for improving child developmental outcomes through parenting programs designed to promote self-efficacy and a sense of community. Parental self-efficacy helps parents understand that their behavior can positively influence the development of their children and give them the chance they truly deserve.

The primary research question for Legacy for Children™ is "do children in the parenting intervention groups achieve better developmental outcomes than do the children in the comparison groups?"