E9-30007. Agency Forms Undergoing Paperwork Reduction Act Review

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a list of information collection requests under review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). To request a copy of these requests, call the CDC Reports Clearance Officer at [phone] or send an e-mail to [e-mail]. Send written comments to CDC Desk Officer, Office of Management and Budget, Washington, DC or by fax to [phone]. Written comments should be received within 30 days of this notice.

Proposed Project

STD Surveillance Network (SSuN)—Existing collection without an OMB number—National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

The purpose of the proposed study is to improve the capacity of national, state, and local STD programs to detect, monitor, and respond rapidly to trends in STDs through enhanced collection, reporting, analysis, visualization and interpretation of disease information. A pilot project that took place from 2006 to 2008 informed the design of the currently submitted SSuN project. The pilot project was helpful in establishing the sample size estimations that will be used in the project and the standardization of the way in which questions will be asked of patients. OMB clearance was not sought for this pilot project because reporting sites (public health departments) instead of people were mistakenly counted as respondents. There were only 6 sites that were reporting data to CDC for the clinic portion of the project; however, more than 10 subjects were involved with the population portion of the pilot.

The SSuN Project will be an active STD sentinel surveillance network comprised of 12 surveillance sites around the United States. SSuN will use two surveillance strategies to collect information. The first will be a STD clinic-based surveillance which will extract data from existing electronic medical records for all patient visits at participating STD clinics over the 3 years. The second will be a population-based surveillance in which a sample of individuals reported with gonorrhea to the 12 SSuN state or city health departments are interviewed using locally designed interview templates.

For the clinic-based surveillance, the specified data elements will be abstracted on a quarterly basis from existing electronic medical records for all patient visits to participating clinics. Data in the electronic medical record may be collected at time of registration, during the clinic encounter, or through laboratory testing. For the population-based STD surveillance, the results of interviews will be entered into a developed Microsoft Access database that will be adapted locally for each clinic. High quality, informative, and timely surveillance data are necessary to guide STD programs so interventions are designed and implemented appropriately. Furthermore, surveillance data are necessary for understanding the impact of STD interventions based on the epidemiology of each STD.

This information will be collected to establish an integrated network of sentinel STD clinics and health departments to inform and guide national programs and policies for STD control in the US. It will improve the capacity of national, state, and local STD programs to detect, monitor, and respond to established and emerging trends in STDs, HIV, and viral hepatitis. SSuN will help identify and evaluate the effectiveness of public health interventions to reduce STD morbidity.

The SSuN surveillance platform will allow CDC to establish and maintain common standards for data collection, transmission, and analysis, and will allow CDC to build and maintain STD surveillance expertise in 12 surveillance areas. Such common systems, established mechanisms of communication, and in-place expertise are all critical components for timely, flexible, and high quality surveillance.

There is no cost to respondents other than their time. The total estimated annual burden hours are 432.

Estimated Annualized Burden Hours

Types of respondent	Number of respondents	Number of responses per respondent	Average burden per response (in hours)
SSuN site	12	4	2
Gonorrhea Case	2880	1	7/60

Dated: December 11, 2009.

Marilyn S. Radke,

Reports Clearance Officer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.