EPA -Valuation of Environmental Impacts on Children's Health

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Valuation of Environmental Impacts on Children's Health

Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Program

National Center for Environmental Research

http://es.epa.gov/ncer/rfa/02childrenval.html

Opening Date: January 18, 2002

Closing Date: May 8, 2002

SUMMARY OF PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS

GENERAL INFORMATION

Program Title: Valuation of Environmental Impacts on Children's Health

Synopsis of Program:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its Science

to Achieve Results (STAR) program, is seeking applications for

research leading to improved theoretical and/or empirical estimates of

the value of reducing environmental risks to children's health. EPA

is particularly interested in risks to children's health from toxic

substances and/or microbial threats in food, the air, surface, ground,

or drinking water, or in the soil or other materials. EPA wants to

identify appropriate measures of willingness to pay (WTP) for

reductions in (1) morbidity and (2) mortality risks to children's

health. All proposals should clearly identify the environmental

stressors and resulting health effects that will be investigated, as

well as the attributes of children (as children and as future adults)

that are altered by those effects. Examples of such attributes

include intelligence, fertility, functionality, mobility, and life

expectancy. Emphasis should be on development of empirical research

and data.

Contact Person: , PhD., 202-564-6842; email:

clark.matthew@...

Applicable Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number(s):

66.500

Eligibility Information:

Academic and not-for-profit institutions located in the U.S., and

state or local governments are eligible to apply for assistance under

this program.

Award Information:

Anticipated Type of Award: Grant

Estimated Number of Awards: Approximately four to eight

Anticipated Funding Amount: Approximately $1 million - $2 million

Potential Funding per Grant per Year: Dependent upon topic addressed

by application

Limitations: Requests over $400,000 total will not be considered

Sorting Code(s):

The sorting code for applications submitted in response to this

solicitation is 2002-STAR-F1.

Deadline/Target Dates:

Letter of Intent Due Date(s): None

Application Proposal Due Date(s): May 8, 2002

INTRODUCTION

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Research and

Development, National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), in

cooperation with the EPA Office of Children's Health Protection (OCHP)

announces the third year of an extramural grants competition

supporting research leading to improved valuation of reducing

environmental risks to children's health.

EPA has supported similar socio-economic research in prior years

through the EPA/NSF joint program on Decision-making and Valuation for

Environmental Policy, and through the 2000 and 2001 Valuation of

Environmental Impacts on Children's Health Solicitations. The

competition encourages proposals from researchers from all behavioral,

social, and economic sciences. It encourages collaborations with

non-social science disciplines when needed to answer important social

science questions. It will support research conducted within a single

disciplinary tradition, and encourages novel, collaborative, and

interdisciplinary scientific efforts.

BACKGROUND

Public decisions on health protection often depend on sound

benefit-cost analysis, or related economic assessments. Therefore,

EPA is interested in sponsoring economic valuation research that will

enhance the ability of all public and private stakeholders to evaluate

policies and actions that may protect people from environmental health

threats. In this solicitation, EPA is requesting research proposals

that develop theoretical and/or empirical methods and data to better

value the health risks to children from environmental sources. EPA is

particularly interested in risks to children's health from toxic

substances and/or microbial threats in food, the air, surface, ground,

or drinking water, or in the soil or other materials.

Federal policy states that health and safety regulations should

recognize and explicitly account for risks to children. Recent

research has shown that children differ from adults in both the kind

and the severity of environmentally induced adverse health effects.

Assessments of the impact of environmental pollutants on children's

health have not included appropriate economic valuations. Economic

valuation studies have focused on individual adults' willingness to

pay to reduce risks to themselves, not children. While valuing

reductions in adverse children's health effects is increasingly

critical for selecting appropriate risk-reducing policies and actions,

information is extremely limited about both the adverse effects of

environmental risks to children, and the value of reducing these

risks. This solicitation focuses on improved understanding of the

latter issue, valuation of reducing health risks to children.

A separate conceptual issue is that existing economic valuation

literature is based primarily on the concept of individual consumer

willingness-to-pay (WTP) for marginal changes in circumstances that

affect each person's own well-being. Economic analyses customarily

assume fully informed and rational consumer behavior when making

choices involving risk tradeoffs. Children, particularly young

children, often lack the experience and resources - including

information, judgment, and income - to indicate a meaningful

willingness to pay. The resources and preferences of some other party

generally provide the correct basis for estimating benefits.

Therefore, analysis of policies affecting children's health typically

cannot rely on individual willingness to pay as a measure of benefits.

DESCRIPTION

To promote research that would enhance economic valuation of reducing

environmental risks to children's health, EPA requests applications

for research funding to identify willingness to pay (WTP) for

reductions in (1) morbidity and (2) mortality risks to children's

health. All proposals should clearly identify the environmental

stressors and resulting health effects that will be investigated, as

well as the attributes of children (as children and as future adults)

that are altered by those effects. Examples of such attributes

include intelligence, fertility, functionality, mobility, and life

expectancy. Emphasis should be on development of empirical research

and data.

This year's Valuation of Environmental Impacts on Children's Health

solicitation requests proposals addressing both acute and chronic

threats to children's health. EPA invites development of WTP

estimates for a variety of health endpoints including: (a) childhood

cancers, ( incidence of food- or water-borne pathogenic illnesses,

© developmental disorders; (d) respiratory illnesses; and (e)

diseases, both fatal and non-fatal, that may manifest in adulthood as

a result of childhood exposure to toxins or pathogens. Proposals

should clearly identify where outcomes are specific to certain health

endpoints, and to the robustness of results with respect to different

health endpoints.

Research proposals should address one or both of the objectives below:

1. Development of methods to measure the value of reducing

morbidity and mortality risks to children's health using either

established or novel techniques.

2. Development of empirical estimates of the value of reducing a

specific risk or set of related risks.

Applicants are encouraged to submit proposals that achieve more than

one of these objectives and involve experts from economics and other

disciplines.

Examples of related research questions:

What is the value for reducing fatal risks to children and how

does it compare to a similar value for adults?

What is the value of lost school or recreational days, reduced

intelligence, or other measures of avoided child morbidity?

What are the roles of age, dependency, ongoing development, and

future potential of children in affecting how valuation of potential

long-term effects is derived?

What is the role of family structure (e.g., presence or absence

of, or number of children in household) on the valuation of children's

health?

What is the role of altruism - particularly to unrelated children

- in how people (society) value reductions in children's health risks?

How should the inter-generational aspects of risks, imposed by

the current generation, on future generation(s) be addressed?

The results of this research are expected to inform federal and state

policy-makers in both executive and legislative capacities, as well as

members of regulated communities, the academic community, and public

interest groups, all of whom will be stakeholders and participants in

the debate on uses of children's health valuation results.

RELATED EPA INFORMATION SOURCES

Applicants are encouraged to avail themselves of information in the

following sources during preparation of proposals. In addition to

this solicitation, in the area of socio-economic research, this year

EPA plans to issue solicitations addressing valuation of ecological

services, environmental behavior, government interventions, and

market-based incentives, subject to available funding. EPA also is

issuing solicitations for research to characterize the effects of

various environmental factors on children's health. Information on

announcements and awards made in these competitions may be found on

the at: http://es.epa.gov/ncer/rfa/. Other EPA programs have an

interest in research and policy development related to children's

health and valuation. Information on activities of the Office of

Children's Health Protection, a partner in this solicitation, can be

found at http://www.epa.gov/children/. The National Center for

Environmental Economics of the Office of Policy, Economics and

Innovation has conducted and compiled a number of health valuation

related studies, see:

http://yosemite1.epa.gov/ee/epa/eed.nsf/pages/homepage?Opendocument.

See particularly the results of workshops on health valuation and the

valuation of fatal risk reduction at:

http://yosemite1.epa.gov/ee/epa/wkshp.n

sf/224b313b40f60b768525679f007b2e50/7d08536d29fb2741852567d2006e608a?OpenDocum

ent

and

http://yosemite1.epa.gov/ee/epa/wkshp.nsf/224b313b40f60b768525679f007b2e50/fc9

dc32ccab4f3c985256ad9004e1488?OpenDocument,respectively.

FUNDING

EPA anticipates making approximately four to eight awards totaling

about $1 million to $2 million. The projected range is from $50,000

to $200,000 per award per year, with durations from one to three

years. Field experiments, survey research, and multi-investigator

projects may justify the higher funding level. Awards made through

this competition will depend on the availability of funds. Requests

for amounts in excess of a total of $400,000 will not be considered.

ELIGIBILITY

Academic and not-for-profit institutions located in the U.S., and

state or local governments, are eligible under all existing

authorizations. Profit-making firms are not eligible to receive

grants from EPA under this program. Federal agencies and national

laboratories funded by federal agencies (Federally-funded Research and

Development Centers, FFRDCs) may not apply.

Federal employees are not eligible to serve in a principal leadership

role on a grant. FFRDC employees may cooperate or collaborate with

eligible applicants within the limits imposed by applicable

legislation and regulations. They may participate in planning,

conducting, and analyzing the research directed by the principal

investigator, but may not direct projects on behalf of the applicant

organization or principal investigator. The principal investigator's

institution may provide funds through its grant from EPA to a FFRDC

for research personnel, supplies, equipment, and other expenses

directly related to the research. However, salaries for permanent

FFRDC employees may not be provided through this mechanism.

Federal employees may not receive salaries or in other ways augment

their agency's appropriations through grants made by this program.

However, federal employees may interact with grantees so long as their

involvement is not essential to achieving the basic goals of the

grant. The principal investigator's institution may also enter into

an agreement with a federal agency to purchase or utilize unique

supplies or services unavailable in the private sector. Examples are

purchase of satellite data, census data tapes, chemical reference

standards, analyses, or use of instrumentation or other facilities not

available elsewhere, etc. A written justification for federal

involvement must be included in the application, along with an

assurance from the federal agency involved which commits it to supply

the specified service.

Potential applicants who are uncertain of their eligibility should

contact Jack Puzak in NCER, phone (202) 564-6825, email:

puzak.jack@....

STANDARD INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMITTING AN APPLICATION

A set of special instructions on how applicants should apply for an

NCER grant is found on the NCER web site,

http://es.epa.gov/ncer/rfa/forms/downlf.html. Standard Instructions

for Submitting a STAR Application and the necessary forms for an

application also will be found on this web site.

SORTING CODES

The need for sorting codes to be used in the application and for

mailing is described in the Standard Instructions for Submitting a

STAR Application. The sorting code for applications submitted in

response to this solicitation is:

2002-STAR-F1 for Valuation of Children's' Health.

The deadline for receipt of the application at NCER is no later than

4:00 p.m. ET, May 8, 2002.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS

In addition to the standard application, the following is also

required:

Data Availability

The application must include a plan to make available all data

(including primary and secondary data) from observations, analyses, or

model development, in a format and with documentation so that others

in the scientific community may utilize them. The data must be made

available to the EPA Project Officer without restriction and be

accompanied by comprehensive metadata documentation adequate for

specialists and non-specialists alike to be able to understand how and

where the data were obtained and to evaluate the quality of the data.

The data, databases, and metadata must be provided to the Project

Officer in standard exchange format no later than the due date of the

grant's final report or the publication of the data, databases, and

metadata's associated results, whichever comes first.

Applicants who develop databases containing proprietary or restricted

information should provide a strategy to make the data widely

available, while protecting privacy or property rights. The plan and

strategy identified in this section should not exceed two pages.

These pages are in addition to the 15 pages permitted for the project

description.

1 EPA encourages interaction between its own laboratory scientists

and grant principal investigators for the sole purpose of exchanging

information in research areas of

common interest that may add value to their respective research

activities. However, this interaction must be incidental to achieving

the goals of the research under a grant.

Interaction that is " incidental " is not reflected in a research

proposal and involves no resource commitments.

CONTACT

Further information, if needed, may be obtained from the EPA official

indicated below. Email inquiries are preferred.

Dr.

EPA National Center for Environmental Research

clark.matthew@...

voice (202) 564-6842

Fax (202) 565-2447