the National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health engaged
500 stakeholders from the occupational
safety and health community
to help define a national occupational
research agenda (NORA) to
improve worker safety and health.1,2
Twenty-one priority research areas
were identified, of which intervention
effectiveness research was one.
The overarching goal of intervention
effectiveness research is to demonstrate
the impact of interventions to
prevent work injury and illness. Conducting
scientifically rigorous intervention
effectiveness research is
challenging because of the varied
scope and complexity of interventions
and the complicated, changing,
real-world conditions potentially affecting
interventions and their outcomes.
Public funds for such research
have been relatively scarce.
Widespread recognition of this situation,
and the increasing pressure to
justify and improve safety and health
investments, helped influence the selection
of intervention effectiveness
research as one of the NORA priority
areas. This article presents a framework
for understanding the process
of intervention research in occupational
safety and health. It is based
on work done by the NORA Intervention
Effectiveness Research Implementation
Team, which is composed
of persons drawn from the
broad occupational safety and health