2018-26352. Proposed Data Collection Submitted for Public Comment and Recommendations

AGENCY:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

ACTION:

Notice with comment period.

SUMMARY:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part of its continuing effort to reduce public burden and maximize the utility of government information, invites the general public and other Federal agencies the opportunity to comment on a proposed and/or continuing information collection, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This notice invites comment on a proposed information collection project titled “Asthma Information Reporting System (AIRS)” (OMB Control No. 0920-0853, expiration date 6/30/2019). The purpose of AIRS to collect performance measure and surveillance data spreadsheets designed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of state asthma programs and to monitor the impact of the state and national programs.

DATES:

CDC must receive written comments on or before February 4, 2019.

ADDRESSES:

You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CDC-2018-0105 by any of the following methods:

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: Regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
• Mail: Jeffrey M. Zirger, Information Collection Review Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE, MS-D74, Atlanta, Georgia 30329.

Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name and Docket Number. CDC will post, without change, all relevant comments to Regulations.gov.

Please note: Submit all comments through the Federal eRulemaking portal (regulations.gov) or by U.S. mail to the address listed above.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

To request more information on the proposed project or to obtain a copy of the information collection plan and instruments, contact Jeffrey M. Zirger, Information Collection Review Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE, MS-D74, Atlanta, Georgia 30329; phone: [phone]; Email: [e-mail].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520), Federal agencies must obtain approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for each collection of information they conduct or sponsor. In addition, the PRA also requires Federal agencies to provide a 60-day notice in the Federal Register concerning each proposed collection of information, including each new proposed collection, each proposed extension of existing collection of information, and each reinstatement of previously approved information collection before submitting the collection to the OMB for approval. To comply with this requirement, we are publishing this notice of a proposed data collection as described below.

The OMB is particularly interested in comments that will help:

1. Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information will have practical utility;

2. Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions used;

3. Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and

4. Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic submissions of responses.

5. Assess information collection costs.

Proposed Project

Asthma Information and Reporting System (AIRS)—Revision—National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

In 1999, the CDC began its National Asthma Control Program (NACP), a public health approach to address the burden of asthma. The program supports the goals and objectives of “Healthy People 2020” for asthma, and is based on the public health principles of surveillance, partnerships, interventions, and evaluation. The CDC requests a 12-month approval to revise the “Asthma Information Reporting System (AIRS)” (OMB Control No. 0920-0853; expiration date 6/30/2019). Specifically, CDC seeks to make the following changes:

• Increase the number of awardees from 23 to 25.
• Increase the requested burden hours from 82 to 89.
• Increase the number of optional performance measures (PMs) and decrease the number of required PMs, while still maintaining a total of 18 PMs.
• Update the instructions for the data collection instruments to reflect the optional status of 5 of the 18 PMs and to clarify instructions that were commonly misinterpreted.
• Update the Emergency Department Data and Hospital Discharge Data reporting forms to include example data submission templates for each awardee. Add a tab labeled “Technical Notes” within the Excel reporting form to collect clarifying information about the data from each awardee.
• Add examples of Emergency Department Data and Hospital Discharge Data reporting forms to provide clarity on how data should be reported within the forms.
• Update respondent costs to reflect current wage data from 2017.

The 12-month approval will allow CDC to continue to monitor states' program planning and delivery of public health activities and the programs' collaboration with health care systems for the remainder of the fifth and final year of cooperative agreement EH14-1404 (program period: September 2014-August 2019), and the third and final year of cooperative agreement EH16-1606 (program period: September 2016-August 2019).

The goal of this data collection is to provide NCEH with routine information about the activities and performance of the state and territorial awardees funded under the NACP through an annual reporting system. NACP requires awardees to report activities related to partnerships, infrastructure, evaluation and interventions to monitor the state programs' performance in reducing the burden of asthma. AIRS also includes two forms to collect aggregate ED and HD data from awardees.

AIRS was first approved by OMB in 2010 to collect data in a web-based system to monitor and guide participating state health departments. Since implementation in 2010, AIRS and the technical assistance provided by CDC staff have provided states with uniform data reporting methods and linkages to other states' asthma program information and resources. Thus, AIRS has saved state resources and staff time when asthma programs embark on asthma activities similar to those done elsewhere.

In the past three years, AIRS data were used to:

• Serve as a resource to NCEH when addressing congressional, departmental and institutional inquiries.
• Help the branch align its current interventions with CDC goals and allowed the monitoring of progress toward these goals.
• Allow the NACP and the state asthma programs to make more informed decisions about activities to achieve objectives.
• Facilitate communication about interventions across states, and enable inquiries regarding interventions by populations with a disproportionate burden, age groups, geographic areas and other variables of interest.
• Provide feedback to the grantees about their performance relative to others through the distribution of two written reports and several presentations (webinar and in-person) summarizing the results.
• Customize and provide technical assistance and support materials to address implementation challenges.

There will be no cost to respondents other than their time to complete the three AIRS spreadsheets annually. The estimated annualized burden hours are 89.

Estimated Annualized Burden Hours

Type of respondents	Form name	Number of respondents	Number of responses per respondent	Average burden per response (in hours)	Total burden (in hours)
State Asthma Program Awardees	AIRS Performance Measures Reporting Spreadsheets	25	1	150/60	63
	AIRS Emergency Department Visits Reporting Form	25	1	30/60	13
	AIRS Hospital Discharge Reporting Forms	25	1	30/60	13
Total					89

Jeffrey M. Zirger,

Acting Lead, Information Collection Review Office, Office of Scientific Integrity, Office of Science, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.