2010-19011. Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

Periodically, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will publish a summary of information collection requests under OMB review, in compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). To request a copy of these documents, call the SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer on [phone].

Project: Survey of State Underage Drinking Prevention Policies and Practices—New

The Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act (the “STOP Act”) ^[1] states that the “Secretary [of Health and Human Services] shall * * * annually issue a report on each State's performance in enacting, enforcing, and creating laws, regulations, and programs to prevent or reduce underage drinking.” The Secretary has delegated responsibility for this report to SAMHSA. Therefore, SAMHSA is developing a Survey of State Underage Drinking Prevention Policies and Practices (the “State Survey”) to provide input for an Annual Report on State Underage Drinking Prevention and Enforcement Activities (the “State Report”).

The STOP Act also requires the Secretary to develop “a set of measures to be used in preparing the report on best practices” and to consider categories including but not limited to the following:

Category #1: Sixteen specific underage drinking laws/regulations enacted at the State level (e.g., laws prohibiting sales to minors; laws related to minors in possession of alcohol);

Category #2: Enforcement and educational programs to promote compliance with these laws/regulations;

Category #3: Programs targeted to youths, parents, and caregivers to deter underage drinking and the number of individuals served by these programs;

Category #4: The amount that each State invests, per youth capita, on the prevention of underage drinking broken into five categories: (a) Compliance check programs in retail outlets; (b) Checkpoints and saturation patrols that include the goal of reducing and deterring underage drinking; (c) Community-based, school-based, and higher-education-based programs to prevent underage drinking; (d) Underage drinking prevention programs that target youth within the juvenile justice and child welfare systems; and (e) Any other State efforts or programs that target underage drinking.

Congress' purpose in mandating the collection of data on State policies and programs through the State Survey is to provide policymakers and the public with currently unavailable but much needed information regarding State underage drinking prevention policies and programs. SAMHSA and other Federal agencies that have underage drinking prevention as part of their mandate will use the results of the State Survey to inform Federal programmatic priorities. The information gathered by the State Survey will also establish a resource for State agencies and the general public for assessing policies and programs in their own State and for becoming familiar with the programs, policies, and funding priorities of other States. It is also consistent with SAMHSA's Strategic Initiative, “Prevention of Substance Abuse and Mental Illness,” which includes the prevention of underage drinking and is designed to create prevention prepared communities where individuals, families, schools, workplaces, and communities take action to promote emotional health and prevent and reduce mental illness, substance abuse, and suicide across the lifespan.

Because of the broad scope of data required by the STOP Act, SAMHSA will rely on existing data sources where possible to minimize the survey burden on the States. SAMHSA will employ data on State underage drinking policies from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS), an authoritative compendium of State alcohol-related laws. The APIS data will be augmented by SAMHSA with original legal research on State laws and policies addressing underage drinking to include all of the STOP Act's requested laws and regulations (Category #1 of the four categories included in the STOP Act, as described above, page 2).

The STOP Act mandates that the State Survey assess “best practices” and emphasize the importance of building collaborations with Federally Recognized Tribal Governments (“Tribal Governments”). It also emphasizes the importance at the Federal level of promoting interagency collaboration and to that end established the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD). SAMHSA has determined that to fulfill the Congressional intent, it is critical that the State Survey gather information from the States regarding the best practices standards that they apply to their underage drinking programs, collaborations between States and Tribal Governments, and the development of State-level interagency collaborations similar to ICCPUD.

SAMHSA has determined that data on Categories #2, #3, and #4 mandated in the STOP Act (as listed on page 2) (enforcement and educational programs; programs targeting youth, parents, and caregivers; and State expenditures) as well as States' best practices standards, collaborations with Tribal Governments, and State-level interagency collaborations are not available from secondary sources and therefore must be collected from the States themselves. The State Survey will therefore be necessary to fulfill the Congressional mandate found in the STOP Act.

The State Survey is a single document that is divided into four sections, as follows:

(1) Enforcement of underage drinking prevention laws;

(2) Underage drinking prevention programs, including data on State best practices standards and collaborations with Tribal Governments;

(3) State interagency collaborations used to implement the above programs; and

(4) Estimates of the State funds invested in the categories specified in the STOP Act (see description of Category #4, above, page 2) and descriptions of any dedicated fees, taxes or fines used to raise these funds.

The number of questions in each Section is as follows:

Section 1: 29 questions.

Section 2A: 18 questions.^[2]

Section 2B: 6 questions.^[3]

Section 2C: 6 questions.

Section 3: 12 questions.

Section 4: 19 questions.

Total: 90 Questions.

It is anticipated that respondents will actually respond to only a subset of this total. This is because the survey is designed with “skip logic,” which means that many questions will only be directed to a subset of respondents who report the existence of particular programs or activities.

To ensure that the State Survey obtains the necessary data while minimizing the burden on the States, SAMHSA has conducted a lengthy and comprehensive planning process. It has sought advice from key stakeholders (as mandated by the STOP Act) including hosting an all-day stakeholders meeting, conducting two field tests with State officials likely to be responsible for completing the State Survey, and investigating and testing various State Survey formats, online delivery systems, and data collection methodologies.

Based on these investigations, SAMHSA has decided to collect the required data using an online survey instrument over an 8-week period. The State Survey will be sent to each State Governor's office and the Office of the Mayor of the District of Columbia, for a total of 51 survey respondents. Based on the feedback received from stakeholders and field pilot testers, it is anticipated that the State Governors will designate staff from State agencies that have access to the requested data (typically State Alcohol Beverage Control [ABC] agencies and State Substance Abuse Program agencies). SAMHSA will provide both telephone and online technical support to State agency staff and will emphasize that the States are only expected to provide data that is readily available and are not required to provide data that has not already been collected. The burden estimate below takes into account these assumptions.

The estimated annual response burden to collect this information is as follows:

Instrument	Number of respondents	Responses/ respondent	Burden/ response (hrs)	Annual burden (hrs)
State Questionnaire	51	1	17.7	902.7

Written comments and recommendations concerning the proposed information collection should be sent by September 2, 2010 to: SAMHSA Desk Officer, Human Resources and Housing Branch, Office of Management and Budget, New Executive Office Building, Room 10235, Washington, DC 20503; due to potential delays in OMB's receipt and processing of mail sent through the U.S. Postal Service, respondents are encouraged to submit comments by fax to: 202-395-5806.

Dated: July 20, 2010.

Elaine Parry,

Director, Office of Program Services.

Footnotes

1.  Public Law 109-422. It is assumed Congress intended to include the District of Columbia as part of the State Report.

2.  Note that the number of questions in Sections 2A is an estimate. This Section asks States to identify their programs that are specific to underage drinking prevention. For each program identified there are six follow-up questions. Based on feedback from stakeholders and pilot testers, it is anticipated that States will report an average of three programs for a total of 18 questions.

3.  Note that the number of questions in Section 2B is an estimate. This Section asks States to identify their programs that are related to underage drinking prevention. For each program identified there are two follow-up questions. Based on feedback from stakeholders and pilot testers, it is anticipated that States will report an average of three such programs for a total of six questions.