Call for Applications to Serve on the Scientific Advisory Board of Osarib and the Esspol Study
Santé publique France, the National Public Health Agency, is issuing a call for applications to establish a Scientific Advisory Board for the Observatory on the Health of Residents Near the Proposed Bure Storage Facility (Osarib) and for the study titled “Health Status and Perceived Health of Populations Living Near Potentially Contaminated Sites and Soils in the Grand Est Region” (Esspol).
Application Guidelines
The application package must include:
a cover letter providing professional and personal contact information, an email address, and a cell phone number;
a resume;
a list of works/publications from the past 5 years;
a public declaration of interest (DPI) to be completed on the DPI portal accessible via the link https://dpi-declaration.sante.gouv.fr/dpi-webapp/app/candidature/index
The application must be submitted by January 25, 2020
To the following email address: cs_osarib_esspol@santepubliquefrance.fr
Selection Criteria
Only complete applications will be considered.
Selection of applications for the Scientific Council will be based on the information provided in the cover letter, the candidates’ alignment with the required skills, an analysis of conflicts of interest, and the necessary multidisciplinary and diverse composition of the group to address the full scope of the issue at hand.
Public declarations of interest will be reviewed by Santé publique France’s Internal Ethics Committee.
Candidates will be notified of the outcome of the review of their application via email from the committee’s secretariat.
Members of the Scientific Council will be appointed by decision of the Director General of Santé publique France; the DPI declarations of Scientific Council members are published on the DPI SANTE website.
Members of the Osarib and Esspol Study Steering Committees, the Scientific Council, the Ethics and Professional Conduct Committee, and the Policy and Dialogue Committee of Santé publique France are not eligible to apply.
The National Public Health Agency, established by Order No. 2016-462 of April 14, 2016, is a public administrative agency under the supervision of the Ministry of Health.
To learn more about the missions of Santé publique France:
https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/a-propos/sante-publique-france-qui-sommes-nous
The Cigéo1 project (Industrial Center for Geological Storage) is designed to store, starting in 2030 and in deep geological formations in Bure (Meuse), the highly radioactive and long-lived waste produced by all current nuclear facilities.
In this context, and prior to any decision regarding the proposed storage facility, a working group comprising the Local Information and Monitoring Committee (CLIS) of Bure, the Prefecture of Meuse (coordinator of the Cigéo mission), the Grand Est Regional Health Agency (ARS) Grand Est, the Institute for Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN), and Santé publique France, has recommended the establishment of a “Health Observatory for Residents Living Near the Bure Storage Facility Project” (Osarib). The objectives of this observatory are:
to produce a baseline health profile of the population living near the project, including:
an analysis of the local context to identify and describe the concerns of local stakeholders;
an overview of the demographic and socioeconomic context and other determinants;
an assessment of health status, based on health indicators from the National Health Data System3 (SNDS);
an overview of perceived health, quality of life, anxiety levels, and environmental perceptions among residents, based on data from a survey of the general adult population.
to continue the monitoring program at a frequency to be determined in order to detect changes in the health status of the local population.
In light of the requests expressed by the population, Osarib will consider the health of local residents in a broad sense and will not focus solely on pathologies with a documented link in the literature to exposure to ionizing radiation.
Contextual data, including perceived health and quality of life among the general population, will be drawn, for the baseline health status, from the Esspol study (Health Status and Perceived Health of Populations Living Near Potentially Contaminated Sites and Soils in the Grand Est Region), conducted by Santé publique France.
The objectives of the Esspol study are:
to describe perceived health, quality of life, anxiety levels, and environmental perceptions among residents living near two potentially contaminated sites (industrial basins) and a major industrial project (the Bure storage facility project);
to cross-reference these perceived health data with health indicators obtained from the SNDS (objective health);
to compare with a population not living near these types of sites.
The Esspol study protocol includes the following:
a contextual analysis within each site-adjacent population;
an assessment of health status based on SNDS data (the three site-adjacent populations and the non-adjacent population);
an assessment of perceived health, quality of life, anxiety levels, and environmental perceptions, based on data from a survey of the general adult population, combined with SNDS healthcare utilization data collected via the NIR from each participant;
the use of data mining techniques to cross-reference contextual data, objective individual health data (SNDS health indicators), and perceived health data (data from the general population survey).
Given the similarity of the methodological approaches and certain objectives, the establishment of a joint scientific advisory board for both studies is appropriate.
1 https://www.andra.fr/cigeo .2 Established by the law of December 30, 1991, renewed by the law of June 28, 2006, and organized as an association since 2008, the CLIS is tasked with informing its members and the affected populations about the activities conducted in the laboratory, monitoring research and the results obtained, and organizing the debate on the proposed storage facility (https://www.clis-bure.com ).3 The SNDS, created by Article 193 of the January 2016 law modernizing our healthcare system, enables the integration of healthcare utilization data from the National Health Insurance (Sniiram), hospitalization data (PMSI), and mortality data (CépiDc).
The establishment of the Osarib/Esspol Scientific Advisory Board is intended to ensure the scientific consistency, relevance, and quality of the protocols for both studies, as well as their results and interpretations.
The Scientific Advisory Board will be called upon to provide comments, opinions, and recommendations to Santé publique France on these various aspects.
This Scientific Council will consist of about ten members, both French and foreign, appointed by the Director General of Santé publique France.
Members of the Scientific Council will serve in their personal capacity and may not be represented by a substitute.
The Scientific Council must have a multidisciplinary composition (see below for the desired expertise) in order to provide a broad perspective on the scientific challenges posed by the proposed methodological approaches.
General Skills
Interest in population-based public health approaches that integrate social and perceptual dimensions;
Environmental health;
Ability to work collaboratively;
Experience participating in working groups;
Specific skills
Epidemiology and public health: exposometrics, association between environmental exposure and diseases, cancer epidemiology, perceived health, quality of life and mental health, monitoring of population health status, population surveys, SNDS…;
Radiation protection and health effects of ionizing radiation;
Sociology and anthropology, particularly regarding issues related to nuclear storage facilities, industrial clusters, loss of public trust, ethics, etc.
This Scientific Council is established for a term of four years, which may be renewed.
The members of the Scientific Council will elect a chair from among themselves.
The Scientific Council will meet twice a year and as needed, depending on the project’s progress.
The Scientific Council’s work is scheduled to begin in January 2020.
Members will sign a “Confidentiality Agreement and a Commitment to Attend Meetings Regularly” and to participate in any necessary drafting or proofreading work in the interim.
Members will have access to information held by Santé publique France that is necessary for the requested work.
The Director General of Santé publique France will provide the resources necessary for the Scientific Council’s operations
The scientific and administrative secretariat of this committee will be provided by the Grand Est Regional Directorate of Santé publique France.
The Scientific Council may hold hearings with any individual whose knowledge and experience are deemed necessary for its mission.
When issuing its opinions and recommendations, the Scientific Council may need to meet in closed session.
Opinions and recommendations shall be issued unanimously or by majority vote, with minority opinions noted.
Travel and subsistence expenses are reimbursed in accordance with the terms and conditions applicable to civilian government employees.
Compensation for members of the Scientific Council for attending meetings and producing work (reviewing and editing texts prepared by the Agency, drafting content, etc.) will be provided in accordance with the schedule established by the Board of Directors of Santé publique France.
