Context (10%)

Proposals should be specific about how the intended assessment approach could be used in epidemiologic studies and should briefly describe the types of studies envisioned. Such descriptions should provide enough detail to allow an evaluation of their potential for successful completion. A strong proposal will describe feasible epidemiologic studies that have a high likelihood of detecting whether or not particular health effects (e.g., cancer) are related to veterans' exposure to herbicides in Vietnam.

Technical Merit (35%)

The proposal should describe the following:

• How the proposed method may improve upon other available methods for Vietnam veterans and provide a better basis for exposure assessment.
• The degree to which the overall herbicide exposure in Vietnam of individuals or groups can be described by the proposed exposure assessment approach.
• The likelihood of discriminating levels of herbicide exposure among the individuals or groups and of identifying high-exposure subgroups or individuals.
• How critical sources of uncertainty will be identified and characterized.
• The characteristics of the groups or individuals studied that need to be controlled for in the analysis and, for the validation study, important confounding exposures and other factors.
• Explicit justification for any proposed biomarker (e.g., TCDD) studies.
• The weaknesses of the chosen approach and the means that will be used to minimize their impact, including a discussion of the critical sources of uncertainty and how they may affect the validation study being proposed.

Feasibility and Validation (25%)

The proposal should describe in detail the study designed to demonstrate the feasibility and validity of implementing the exposure assessment approach, as well as the accuracy, biases, and uncertainties of the approach. The proposal should also describe how this approach could be applied to achieve meaningful results in a possible future epidemiologic study of herbicide-related health effects in Vietnam veterans.

Personnel and Experience (20%)

A list of the proposed management and investigators should be submitted, along with a description of activities to be performed by the individual investigators and their curriculum vitae. The research team must have expertise in performing exposure assessments for epidemiologic studies and should include an experienced epidemiologist, as well as individuals experienced in handling military records.

It is recognized that specific expertise in different types of exposure models (i.e., records based vs. biomarker based) may not be available within the same research group or organization. Collaborations between scientific researchers and individuals or organizations familiar with military records and combat operations are encouraged.

Cost and Timeline (10%)

The costs and schedule of proposed activities must be delineated. Proposals will be evaluated in terms of cost-effectiveness, as well as the capacity to perform the proposed work within the schedule provided, using the resources described.