[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 175 (Friday, September 10, 2004)]
[Notices]
[Pages 54793-54794]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 04-20515]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[30Day-04-040D]


Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

    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 (404) 498-1210 or send an email to 
[email protected]. Send written comments to CDC Desk Officer, Human Resources 
and Housing Branch, New Executive Office Building, Room 10235, 
Washington, DC 20503 or by fax to (202) 395-6974. Written comments 
should be received within 30 days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    ATSDR Rapid Response Registry--New--The Agency for Toxic Substances 
and Disease Registry (ATSDR). ATSDR plans to develop a registry of 
individuals exposed to a terrorist or other significant emergency event 
potentially affecting public health within the United States and its 
territories. The authority to establish and maintain this registry was 
given to ATSDR through the following federal laws: Public Health 
Service Act, 42 U.S.C. 319; the 1980 Comprehensive Environmental 
Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) and its 1986 
Amendments, the Superfund Amendments and Re-authorization Act (SARA); 
Federal Response Plan; National Contingency Plan; and the Department of 
Homeland Security's Consolidated Emergency Operations Plan. ATSDR has 
consistently been identified as having the primary responsibility for 
the creation and

[[Page 54794]]

maintenance of an event-related registry of affected individuals during 
the acute response phase of an emergency event.
    ATSDR plans to develop and maintain a central registry, named the 
Rapid Response Registry (RRR), of individuals who were in the vicinity 
of a terrorist or other emergency event. The ATSDR RRR teams will begin 
identifying and enrolling victims and potentially exposed individuals 
within hours of an incident, in collaboration with state and local 
government agencies and private response organizations. RRR activities 
are intended to help document an individual's presence at or near a 
specific terrorist or other significant emergency event. This 
information will be used primarily to provide health officials with 
essential information necessary for both short- and long-term follow-up 
of victims and potentially exposed individuals.
    Contact information will be used to provide information to the 
registrants regarding their exposures, potential health impacts, 
available educational materials, and other pertinent news and updates. 
Follow-up contacts by health officials are anticipated to be for the 
purposes of assessing current and future medical needs and providing 
appropriate and timely medical interventions where possible. Subsequent 
health studies (not part of this activity) may be useful to identify 
potential long-term health outcomes in the exposed population; the 
contact information will enable these studies to be conducted.
    A standardized, one-page survey instrument will be used to collect 
contact information, demographics, and brief exposure and outcome data 
on all registrants. The same survey instrument will be used in both 
Phase I and Phase II data collection activities.
    Phase I response entails immediate deployment of the RRR team to 
support local efforts to enroll victims and immediately-exposed 
individuals. Phase I RRR data collection teams will be deployed to all 
places where victims and the immediately-exposed population might be 
located (e.g., on-site response facilities, emergency departments, 
hospitals, morgues, public shelters, churches).
    Phase II response entails later deployment of an RRR team to 
conduct a census of the entire at-risk population. Phase II data 
collection methods will include house-to-house interviews, telephone 
interviews, on-line enrollment, media outreach, and professional 
tracing services. If the at-risk population or geographic area is 
reasonably small-scale, a systematic census will be conducted to enroll 
every exposed or potentially exposed person. If the at-risk population 
or geographic area is large-scale, then a representative sample of the 
at-risk population will be enrolled. A brief, optional health effects 
questionnaire also has been developed that will be made available to 
local health officials, if they wish to use it, to better characterize 
the types of health outcomes resulting from the emergency event. The 
annualized burden hours are estimated to be 234.

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                                                                                                    Avg. burden
                           Respondents                               Number of     Responses per   per response
                                                                    respondents     respondent       (in hrs.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
People in proximity to an emergency event: 1-page contact form             1,000               1           10/60
 only...........................................................
People in proximity to an emergency event: health effects                    200               1           20/60
 questionnaire..................................................
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    Dated: August 31, 2004.
Alvin Hall,
Director, Management Analysis and Services Office, Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 04-20515 Filed 9-9-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P