THE AGRICULTURAL HEALTH STUDY (FIELD STATIONS)

RELEASE DATE:  April 11, 2003

NOTICE:  NOT-CA-03-021

National Cancer Institute (NCI)
 (http://www.nci.nih.gov/)

The Occupational Epidemiology Branch (OEB), National Cancer Institute 
(NCI) is seeking contractors to perform the above named project. This 
contract will maintain field stations for the prospective cohort study 
in North Carolina and/or Iowa. A cohort of approximately 59,000 has 
been established in Iowa and 30,000 in North Carolina that can be 
followed prospectively for 10 years or more to obtain detailed 
information on agricultural exposures, diet, cooking practices, and 
other factors of etiologic interest for cancer and other diseases. 
Field Stations shall be located in North Carolina and Iowa, states with 
population-based cancer registries and pesticide applicator registries. 
The entire cohort will include farm owner/operators (approximately 
53,000), their spouses (approximately 30,000), and commercial 
applicators (approximately 6,000 - all from Iowa). A new questionnaire 
will be administered to the cohort under this contract to supplement 
questionnaire information previously collected from this cohort when it 
was assembled. The types of support to be provided by the Contractor in 
the conduct of the studies include: study re-initiation and liaison, 
use of study materials (e.g., questionnaires), CATI interviewing, other 
data collection (e.g., pathology records, death certificates), data 
preparation, data processing, drawing buccal "swish and spit" samples 
from selected members of the cohort in a non-clinical setting, study 
monitoring, quality control, and reporting/communicating recent 
research results to the cohort by direct mailings, website postings, 
and short articles in farm journals. These tasks may vary. In addition, 
the contractors shall be required to perform four options for special 
studies under the contract. (TO BE EXERCISED IF FUNDS BECOME AVAILABLE)

The estimated level of effort, including all options, to be provided is 
257,684 total direct labor hours for the entire period of performance 
for the entire cohort developed at all Field Stations. Direct labor 
hours at individual Field Stations should be estimated in proportion to 
the number of cohort members that have been enrolled into the study in 
Iowa or North Carolina. The Contractor must meet the following three 
Mandatory Qualification Criteria at the time of receipt of the Final 
Proposal Revisions (FPR) for their proposal to be considered any 
further by the Contracting Officer: 1) The Contractor must document 
that they have received authorization from the appropriate state 
official to access the cancer registry of North Carolina and/or Iowa 
for the purpose of matching the Agricultural Health Study Cohort to the 
registry on an annual basis. 2)  The offerors seeking the Field Station 
contract must demonstrate/document that they have a field office in 
North Carolina and/or Iowa with all the resources necessary to conduct 
this study by the anticipated start date of the contract.  3) The 
Contractor must document the willingness of the state and local 
extension service and the state department of Agriculture, to support 
the activities enumerated in the scope of work of this RFP.  All 
responsible sources meeting these criteria are encouraged to submit an 
offer and will be considered by the National Cancer Institute. The 
contract will be a cost-reimbursement, completion type for a 60-month 
period. It is anticipated that the solicitation package will be 
available on/about April 15, 2003, with proposals due 45 days after the 
issue date of the RFP. Award is anticipated by December 30, 2003. No 
collect calls will be accepted.  The detailed RFP may be accessed via 
the Research Contracts Branch (RCB) website:  http://rcb.nci.nih.gov/ 
under "Current Requests For Proposals.  

INQUIRIES

For further information contact:

Karen L. McFarlane
Contracting Officer
Epidemiology and Support Section, RCB
National Cancer Institute
Executive Plaza South, Room 6114
6120 Executive Boulevard, MSC 7196
Rockville, MD 20892-7196
Voice:  (301) 435-3782
Fax:  (301) 480-0241
Email:  [email protected]

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