iDr. Linda S. Birnbaum, Director, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), wrote an editorial in Environmental Health Perspectives on “Updating the NIEHS Strategic Plan.” According to Birnbaum, NIEHS is developing a plan to guide its next five years and seeks broad input. NIEHS has created an online survey, “Trends & Insights: Next Steps for NIEHS,” through which stakeholders can provide feedback on the existing Strategic Plan, as well as offer any other relevant comments. The 2012-2017 Strategic Plan includes 11 Strategic Goals. Goal Five, “Identify and respond to emerging environmental threats to human health, on both a local and global scale,” includes “[f]ocus[ing] on research needs to help inform policy responses in public health situations in which lack of knowledge hampers policymaking, e.g., health effects of exposures related to hydrofracking or climate change, or exposures to engineered nanomaterials.” The survey will be available until August 11, 2017. Birnbaum states that the results, along with input collected in other venues, will help to inform a draft Strategic Plan that NIEHS anticipates making available for review later in 2017.
