SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- Add Health-Air Quality Database Merger
- Notice Date
- 3/8/2012
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541620
— Environmental Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- HPODUS Environmental Protection AgencyAriel Rios Building1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W.Mail Code: 3803RWashingtonDC20460
- ZIP Code
- 20460
- Solicitation Number
- PR-ORD-12-01153
- Response Due
- 3/23/2012
- Archive Date
- 4/22/2012
- Point of Contact
- Harold Honegger
- E-Mail Address
-
Contracting Officer
(honegger.harold@epa.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- The United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA), Office of Acquisition Management, intends to issue a sole source firm-fixed price purchase order under the authority of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 13, Simplified Acquisition Procedures, to the Carolina Population Center (CPC) to gain access to the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) dataset in order to develop analytical methods to link the physical and chemical properties of air pollutants to better inform the periodic reviews of the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). Based on the Add Health study protocols approved by the University of North Carolina Institutional Review Board, the CPC is the only organization permitted to handle the geocoded Add Health dataset, which is necessary for linking the air pollutant data to Add Health for each study participant. As such, the CPC is uniquely qualified for the tasks delineated below, which includes forming data l inkages, de-identification, and deductive disclosure analysis needed to build the merged air quality-Add Health dataset available to the USEPA and to the larger scientific community. A sole source purchase order is appropriate and necessary because the CPC is the sole purveyor of the Add Health dataset. EPA is not aware of any other contractor that has the Carolina Population Center?s access to the Add Health data and scientific technical expertise. Selection of any other contractor would delay the scientific professional services, duplicate cost to the government that is not expected to be recovered through the competition of this specialized requirement. Notwithstanding, any contractor that believes they are capable of meeting EPA's requirements as stated herein may submit evidence of such capability within 15 days of this posting. A determination not to compete the proposed purchase order based upon the responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government. The anticipate period of performance for this requirement is April 1, 2012?October 31, 2013. All questions, comments, and capability statements regarding this procurement shall be addressed in writing to the Contracting Officer, Harold Honegger, at honegger.harold@epa.gov BACKGROUND: EPA is interested in developing analytical methods to link the physical and chemical properties of air pollutants to better inform the periodic reviews of the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS). The Agency is currently in the process of planning a multipollutant science assessment (MSA) whereby the health effects of exposures to mixtures of air pollutants, particularly the criteria air pollutants, may be systematically evaluated. The database obtained from the work will be of importance to NCEA/RTP to perform analyses in its effort to develop an MSA as well as to support its mission to produce Integrated Science Assessments (ISAs) for specific criteria pollutants as part of the NAAQS reviews. The science assessments typically rely upon existing data from previous studies and peer-reviewed journals. However, very few studies have linked air pollutant concentrations with human health data for a sample of the population that is sufficiently large, diverse, and spatially dispersed to develop a national inference. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is uniquely suitable for this project because no other study offering a national inference has been longitudinal. Add Health has developed a geocoded database with health response, biomarker, demographic, and social variables that is sufficiently large (roughly 90,000 initial participants), diverse (self-reported 60.5% white, 19.0% black or African American, 7.0% Asian/Pacific Islander, 5.4% Indian or Native American, 9.7% other; 17.2% Hispanic), and spatially dispersed (participants now live within all 50 states within the United States). The geocoded data are necessary to link the Add Hea lth participants to monitored and modeled air pollutant concentration data based on time and location. The Add Health database is especially appropriate for the analyses planned for the MSA because: (1) The Add Health database includes several biometric parameters of cardiovascular health, which may be more accurate indicators of disease compared with self-reported data. (2) The Add Health database comprises young adults currently ages 27-35, who have been followed since 1994-95 when they were in the 7th-12th grades. There have not been extensive air pollution epidemiology studies among adolescents and young adults. (3) The Add Health cohort exhibited high rates of obesity (36%), hypertension (19%), and diabetes (5-15%) at Wave IV (2008), which may make this group more susceptible to cardiovascular health effects related to air pollution exposure. (4) The Add Health study has a progressive data sharing policy that enables linkage of Add Health with other datasets to meet t he objectives of this study. This policy is beneficial because the new dataset linking air pollutant concentrations to the Add Health participants will become a resource to the larger scientific community. Add Health also is an ongoing study, offering continued longitudinal analysis of the health effects of air pollution among this cohort as subsequent waves of data are collected in the future. If the EPA should identify a need to link air quality data with a health database in the future, EPA scientists would benefit from having longitudinal data available for subsequent analysis by using the Add Health cohort. STATEMENT OF WORK: The long-term goal of this research is to develop a method for explaining population-level health effects with the physico-chemical properties of ambient air pollutants, including particulate matter (PM) component and gaseous air pollutants. The novel aspect of this work is that toxicological evidence of the mechanisms underlying adverse health effects of air pollutants will be accounted for in the epidemiological model. Air pollutants will be grouped by their oxidative properties using hierarchical methods. Epidemiological models exploring the relationships between adverse cardiovascular health effects and pollutants? oxidative properties will be developed using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) database combined with air pollutant concentration data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA). This work is guided by the hypothesis that an epidemiological model accounting for air pollutants? toxicological properties w ill provide a robust, accurate, and precise representation of health effects that yields new insights into potential mechanisms of air pollutants effects on health. The objective of this project is to create a database that can be used for analysis of the relationship of health outcomes with air pollutant concentrations and properties of air pollutants. The Contractor shall merge data from the National Longitudinal Study for Adolescent Health Cohort (Add Health) with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Air Quality System (AQS) monitoring data for components of particulate matter (PM) and several gaseous pollutants. Additionally, data from Add Health shall also be merged with output from the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model for select pollutants to extend the spatial coverage of the Add Health cohort. The datasets created under this work assignment (WA) will be used in analyses that support the U.S. EPA?s new Multipollutant Science Assessment. TASKS: The Contractor shall accomplish the following tasks and shall complete these tasks according to the estimated deliverable schedule below. Because these tasks are important to the EPA?s mandated environmental objectives, any late deliverables may negatively affect the outcome of the entire project.Task 1: Establish Communication Within 3 days of award of this WA, the Contractor shall schedule a meeting or conference call with the work assignment manager (WAM) and appropriate contractor staff to clarify outstanding questions and confirm the schedule and specific tasks. The Contractor shall initiate additional communication with the WAM should developments arise that will affect the conduct or schedule for development of this work assignment. The Contractor shall maintain communication with the WAM through weekly phone calls or email updates. Task 2. Prepare a Quality Assurance Project Plan The Contractor shall provide an EPA R5-compliant quality assurance project plan (QAPP) for Tasks 3 through 6. Guidance for QAPP development can be found at: http://www.epa.gov/quality/qs-docs/r5-final.pdf. Task 3.Merge Add Health Data with AQS and CMAQ Datasets The Contractor shall merge the Add Health database with and the AQS database and CMAQ modeling results. AQS and CMAQ data will be presented in a series of files provided by the WAM to the Contractor. The AQS files will contain data records for each date of sampling and monitor combination in the United States during the months that span Waves III-IV of Add Health. For each monitoring site, latitude and longitude, sampler identification number, temperature, and pollutant concentrations will be provided. For the AQS data, the Contractor shall employ geographical information systems (GIS) to create a buffer around each Add Health participant based on their home latitude and longitude. The size of the buffer is to be determined based on a combination of factors including spatial transport scale of the different pollutants, number of Add Health participants with assigned data, and locations of the monitors. The WAM will work collaboratively with the Contractor to test whether a sufficient number of Add Health participants are included in the study following the initial buffer scheme. If needed, the buffers may be adjusted after this initial test. Next, the concentrations, temperature, sampling date, and pseudocoded monitor identification number shall be assigned to each Add Health participant if the monitor latitude and longitude fall within the buffer and the annual concentration average has 75% data completeness within the date of Add Health participant response. If more than one monitor falls within a participant?s buffer and contains the same air pollutants, then the concentrations shall be weighted according to an inverse distance weighting algorithm. If no data were acquired for a concentration field within a participant?s buffer and questionnaire date, then that concentration field shall be assigned a null value for that subject and Wave. The CMAQ data files will include grid cell concentration data for ozone, sulfate, nitrate, elemental carbon, secondary organic carbon, and ammonium. Also included in this file will be latitude/longitude of the upper left corner of each grid cell included in the surface, average temperature and humidity for each grid cell, date, and an identification number for each grid cell. The files will contain time averaged data for each grid cell covering the CONUS during the months that span Waves III-IV of Add Health. The Contractor shall employ geographical information systems (GIS) to identify the home location of each Add Health participant based on their home latitude and longitude and link that participant to a grid cell in the surface concentration profile. The Contractor shall also assign a pseudocoded identification number to each grid cell; in the Add Health-CMAQ dataset, the pseudocoded identification number shall replace the initial grid cell identification number provide d. The WAM will work collaboratively with the Contractor to test whether a sufficient number of Add Health participants are included in each grid cell. If needed, the grid cell sizes may be adjusted after this initial test. Next, the concentrations, temperature, and pseudocoded monitor identification number shall be assigned to each Add Health participant based on their location within a grid cell for a given averaging time within each Wave. The contractor shall participate in periodic telephone meetings with EPA staff to discuss the database merger. Task 4. De-Identify and Perform Deductive Disclosure Testing of the Merged Databases Once all participants have received concentration assignments for each Wave, the dataset shall be de-identified. The WAM will work collaboratively with the Contractor to refine these plans in accordance with any unforeseen considerations related to performing the data merge. The Contractor shall merge the data in a secure data facility. After de-identification, the Contractor shall assign the remaining Add Health variables to each data record. The Contractor shall hold periodic teleconferences with the WAM to update the status of the de-identification process. Task 5. Provide Data Sets The Contractor shall clean the datasets in consultation with the WAM and then shall make the data available to the WAM on the Add Health Terminal Server (AHTS) or by hard copy (i.e., disk). Task 6.Prepare Documentation of the Merged Databases Documentation of the compiled datasets shall be prepared by the Contractor. This shall include a comprehensive listing of the variables included in the dataset. The Contractor shall participate in periodic telephone meetings with EPA staff to discuss plans for written descriptions of the analysis. Any written material should be prepared using Microsoft Word and submitted electronically. DELIVERABLES: The Contractor shall provide written products to the EPA PO as specified in the above tasks. All products must be of high quality, written in a clear concise style, with a logical organization and presentation. Products not adhering to these standards, or substantially lacking scientific quality, will not be accepted. The Contractor shall use current EPA guidelines for performance of work, unless otherwise specified. The Contractor shall provide all written materials and responses in both hard copy and electronic format. Hard copies of all completed text, tables, and figures shall be submitted to EPA by the deadlines established in the scope of work. Contractors should also submit disks or email electronic files. All of NCEA?s word processing activities are performed in Microsoft Word (Windows). Macintosh and DOS files are unacceptable. Similarly, WordPerfect files are unacceptable. Figures and other graphics are acceptable in the following formats: Adobe Illustrator (.AI), CorelDraw (.CDR), WP Presentation (.WPG), Lotus Pic (.PIC), MACPICT (.PCT), PostScript (.EPS) (include 100-dpi TIF preview), TIFF Bitmap (.TIF), Photoshop (.PSD,.JPG, or.GIF)(all bitmap formats should be at least 200 dpi for acceptable reproduction on 300-dpi laser printers), Windows Metafiles (.WMF), Freehand (.FH), and Excel (.XLS). Tables prepared using Word are preferred.For guidance in the area of editorial style, use The ACS Style Guide and the United States Government Printing Office Style Manual. ESTIMATED DELIVERY AND TASK COMPLETION SCHEDULE The Contractor shall be responsible for delivering all written materials and professional services in accordance with the following proposed time schedule. Partial payment following completion of each task is authorized. DeliverablesAnticipated Completion DatesTask 1.Establish communicationsWithin 3 days of contract approval.Task 2.Prepare Quality Assurance Project PlanWithin 20 days of contract approval.Task 3. Merge Add Health and AQS datasets Merge Add Health and CMAQ datasetsJuly 31, 2013 July 31, 2013 Task 4.De-identify and perform deductive disclosure testing of the merged databasesAugust 31, 2013Task 5.Provide datasetsSeptember 30, 2013Task 6. Prepare documentation of the merged databases September 30, 2013All deliverables should be submitted electronically. MANAGEMENT CONTROL PROCEDURES The EPA has determined that activities related to this contract come under the definition of advisory and assistance services and, as such, additional management controls have been added. The PO is responsible for assuring compliance. a.All clarification and technical discussion between the EPA PO and the Contractor shall be documented with email correspondence. b.If requested by the Contractor, the EPA PO will provide copies of relevant materials. c.All deliverables will be reviewed carefully by the EPA PO to ensure that work conforms to the requirements of the Statement of Work. d.Contractor deliverables shall be subjected to NCEA and ORD clearance and peer-review procedures, as required. All documents shall be filed in accordance with the EPA National Records Management Program. e.In the course of conducting this work, the Contractor shall interface with scientists in the EPA?s National Center for Environmental Assessment-RTP Office. The Contractor shall clearly identify himself as an EPA contractor when in attendance at EPA meetings and other functions relevant to this contract. f.All work shall be performed off-site. The Contractor is required to report on prior contracts and current work that may present a conflict of interest. The above control measures will ensure that no activity is performed or products released without prior review and approval by the EPA PO.
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