2011-29830. Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

Periodically, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) publishes abstracts of information collection requests under review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), in compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (44 U.S.C. chapter 35). To obtain a copy of the clearance requests submitted to OMB for review, email [e-mail] or call the HRSA Reports Clearance Office on [phone].

The following request has been submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for review under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995:

Proposed Project: National Survey of Organ Donation Attitudes and Practices (OMB No. 0915-xxxx)—[New]

The Division of Transplantation (DoT), Healthcare Systems Bureau, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), is planning to conduct a telephone survey of public knowledge, perceptions, opinion, and behaviors related to organ donation. Two key missions of the DoT are (1) to provide oversight for the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network and policy development related to organ donation and transplantation and (2) to implement efforts to increase public knowledge about the need for increased organ donation.

With a constantly growing deficit between the number of Americans needing donor organs (currently approximately 112,000) and the annual number of donors (14,505 in 2010), raising the American public's willingness to donate becomes increasingly critical. Effective education and outreach campaigns need to be based on knowledge of the public's attitudes and perceptions about, and perceived impediments to, organ donation. Two national surveys using nearly identical survey instruments to identify public views and behaviors related to organ donation were conducted in 1993 and 2005.

The proposed study will identify current organ donation views and practices of the American public and various population subgroups using a survey instrument similar to the two earlier studies in order to track changes over time. It will measure issues such as public knowledge about and attitudes toward organ donation, public commitment to or willingness to donate, impediments to public willingness to donate, and attitudes toward living donation, donation practices, policy issues, allocation policy, presumed consent, and financial incentives for donation. Demographic information also will be collected. The randomly drawn sample will consist of 3,250 adults (age 18 and over), including an oversample of Asians, Hispanics, African Americans, and Native Americans, and will be geographically representative of the United States. The survey instrument will be administered in both English and Spanish through computer-assisted telephone interviews.

In addition to being useful to the DoT (especially in its donation outreach initiatives), results of this survey also will be of assistance to the donation and transplant community, DoT grantees and other research efforts, and to the Secretary's Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation (ACOT) as it fulfills its charge to advise the Secretary of Health and Human Services on the numerous and often controversial issues related to donation and transplantation. In its first meeting, the ACOT suggested such a survey to gather information to inform both public education efforts and policy decisions on the issue of organ donation.

The annual estimate of burden is as follows:

Instrument	Number of respondents	Responses per respondent	Total responses	Hours per response	Total burden hours
Telephone survey	3,250	1	3,250	0.3	975
Total	3,250	1	3,250	0.3	975

Written comments and recommendations concerning the proposed information collection should be sent within 30 days of this notice to the desk officer for HRSA, either by email to [e-mail] or by fax to [phone]. Please direct all correspondence to the “attention of the desk officer for HRSA.”

A similar request for public comments was published in the Federal Register on September 20, 2011 (76 FR 58282).

Dated: November 14, 2011.

Reva Harris,

Acting Director, Division of Policy and Information Coordination.