2023-03319. 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 information collection, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This notice invites comment on a proposed information collection project titled the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Rapid Surveys System (RSS). The RSS is a new survey system being designed to complement the current household survey systems at NCHS. The RSS will use survey data from probability-based online panels to produce time-sensitive estimates of new and emerging public health topics, attitudes, and behaviors.

DATES:

CDC must receive written comments on or before April 18, 2023.

ADDRESSES:

You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CDC-2023-0011 by any of the following methods:

• Federal eRulemaking Portal:www.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 H21-8, Atlanta, Georgia 30329.

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

Please note: Submit all comments through the Federal eRulemaking portal ( www.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 H21-8, Atlanta, Georgia 30329; Telephone: [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;

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; and

5. Assess information collection costs.

Proposed Project

National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Rapid Surveys System (RSS)—New—National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

Section 306 of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act (42 U.S.C.), as amended, authorizes that the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), acting through NCHS, collect data about the health of the population of the United States. The NCHS Rapid Surveys System (RSS) will collect data on emerging public health topics, attitudes, and behaviors using cross-sectional samples from two commercially available, national probability-based online panels. The RSS will then combine these data to form estimates that approximate national representation in ways that many data collection approaches cannot. The RSS is intended to collect data in contexts in which decision makers' need for time-sensitive data of known quality about emerging and priority health concerns is a higher priority than their need for statistically unbiased estimates.

The RSS will complement NCHS's current household survey systems. As quicker turnaround surveys that require less accuracy and precision than CDC's more rigorous population representative surveys, the RSS will incorporate multiple mechanisms to carefully evaluate the resulting survey data for its appropriateness for use in public health surveillance and research ( e.g., hypothesis generating) and facilitate continuous quality improvement by supplementing these panels with intensive efforts to understand how well the estimates reflect populations at most risk. The RSS data dissemination strategy will communicate the strengths and limitations of data collected through online probability panels as compared to more robust data collection methods.

The RSS has three major goals: (1) to provide CDC and other partners with time-sensitive data of known quality about emerging and priority health concerns; (2) to use these data collections to continue NCHS's evaluation of the quality of public health estimates generated from commercial online panels; and (3) to improve methods to communicate the appropriateness of public health estimates generated from commercial online panels.

Each round's questionnaire will consist of four main components: (1) basic demographic information on respondents to be used as covariates in analyses; (2) new, emerging, or supplemental content proposed by NCHS, other CDC Centers, Institute, and Offices, and other HHS agencies; (3) questions used for calibrating the survey weights; and (4) additional content selected by NCHS to evaluate against relevant benchmarks. NCHS will use questions from components (1) and (2) to provide relevant, timely data on new, emerging, and priority health topics to be used for decision making. NCHS will use questions from components (3) and (4) to weight and evaluate the quality of the estimates coming from questions in component (1) and (2). Components (1) and (2) will contain different topics in each round of the survey.

The RSS is designed to have four rounds of data collection each year with two contractors. A cross-sectional nationally representative sample will be drawn from the online probability panel maintained by each of the contractors. A separate 30-day OMB package and Federal Register notice with the draft data collection instrument will be submitted for each round of data collection. As part of the base (minimum sample size), each round of data collection will collect 2,000 responses per quarter. The RSS can be expanded by increasing the number of completed responses per round and/or the number of rounds per year as needed up to a maximum of 28,000 responses per year per contractor or 56,000 total responses per year. Additionally, each data collection may include up to 2,000 additional responses per quarter (8,000 for the year) to improve representativeness. This increases the maximum burden by up to 16,000 responses per year. The RSS may also target individual surveys to collect data only from specific subgroups within existing survey panels and may supplement data collection for such groups with additional respondents from other probability or nonprobability samples. An additional 12,000 responses per year may be used for these developmental activities. Survey questions being asked of the panelists will be cognitively tested. This cognitive testing will help survey users interpret the findings by understanding how respondents answer each question.

CDC requests OMB approval for an estimated 28,080 burden hours annually over the course of the three-year approval. There are no costs to respondents other than their time.

Estimated Annualized Burden Hours

Type of survey	Number of respondents	Number of responses per respondent	Average burden per response (in hours)	Total burden hours
Base Surveys	16,000	1	20/60	5,333
Potential Sample Expansion	40,000	1	20/60	13,334
Additional Surveys to Increase Representativeness	16,000	1	20/60	5,333
Developmental: Additional Surveys for Specific Subgroups	12,000	1	20/60	4,000
Cognitive Interviews	80	1	1	80
Total				28,080

Jeffrey M. Zirger,

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