[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 20 (Monday, February 1, 2010)]
[Notices]
[Pages 5087-5088]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-2058]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-10-10BG]


Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

    In compliance with the requirement of Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 for opportunity for public comment on 
proposed data collection projects, the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC) will publish periodic summaries of proposed projects. 
To request more information on the proposed projects or to obtain a 
copy of the data collection plans and instruments, call 404-639-5960 
and send comments to Maryam I. Daneshvar, CDC Acting Reports Clearance 
Officer, 1600 Clifton Road, MS-D74, Atlanta, GA 30333 or send an e-mail 
to [email protected].
    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of 
information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of 
the agency, including whether the information shall have practical 
utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the 
proposed collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality, 
utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and (d) ways 
to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, 
including through the use of automated collection techniques or other 
forms of information technology. Written comments should be received 
within 60 days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    National Voluntary Environmental Assessment Information System 
(NVEAIS)--New--National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    The CDC is requesting OMB approval for a National Voluntary 
Environmental Assessment Information System to collect data from food- 
and waterborne illness outbreak environmental assessments routinely 
conducted by local, State, territorial, or tribal food and water safety 
programs during outbreak investigations. Environmental assessment data 
are not currently collected at the national level. The data reported 
through this information system will provide timely data on the causes 
of outbreaks, including environmental factors associated with 
outbreaks, and are essential to environmental public health regulators' 
efforts to respond more effectively to outbreaks and prevent future, 
similar outbreaks. This information system is specifically designed to 
link to CDC's existing disease outbreak surveillance system (National 
Outbreak Reporting System).
    The information system was developed by the Environmental Health 
Specialists Network (EHS-Net), a collaborative project of CDC, the U.S. 
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
(USDA), and nine states (California, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, New 
York, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Tennessee). The network 
consists of environmental health specialists (EHSs), epidemiologists, 
and laboratorians. The EHS-Net has developed a standardized protocol 
for identifying, reporting, and analyzing data relevant to food- and 
waterborne illness outbreak environmental assessments.
    The information to be reported to NVEAIS will be obtained from 
environmental assessments routinely conducted by state, local, tribal 
and territorial food and water safety program officials in response to 
food- and waterborne illness outbreaks. While conducting environmental 
assessments during outbreak investigations is routine for food and 
water safety program officials, reporting information from the 
environmental assessments to CDC is not. Thus, state, local, tribal, 
and territorial food and water safety program officials are the 
respondents for this data collection. However, participation in the 
system is voluntary.
    There are approximately 3,000 public health departments (where food 
and water safety programs are typically located) in the United States. 
Many of these departments have separate food and water safety programs. 
If a public health department chooses to participate in NVEAIS, there 
will likely be two respondents from that department--one person 
responsible for reporting foodborne outbreak environmental assessment 
data to NVEAIS and one person responsible for reporting waterborne 
outbreak environmental assessment data to NVEAIS. Thus, although it is 
not possible to determine how many departments will choose to 
participate, as NVEAIS is voluntary, the maximum potential number of 
respondents is approximately 6,000 (one for each food safety program 
and one for each water safety program in each public health 
department).
    It is not possible to determine exactly how many outbreaks will 
occur in the future, nor where they will occur. However, we can 
estimate, based on existing data, that a maximum of 1,600 illness 
outbreaks (1,100 foodborne and 500 waterborne) will occur annually.

[[Page 5088]]

Only respondents in the jurisdictions in which these outbreaks occurred 
would report to NVEAIS. Thus, not every respondent will respond every 
year. Thus, we have based our respondent burden estimate on the number 
of outbreaks likely to occur each year, rather than the number of 
potential respondents. Assuming each outbreak occurs in a different 
jurisdiction, there will be one respondent per outbreak. Each 
respondent will respond only once per outbreak investigated and the 
average burden per response will be approximately 120 minutes. Thus, 
the estimated total annual burden to report is 3,200 hours.
    There is no cost to the respondents other than their time.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                                      Average
                                                     Number of       Number of      burden per     Total burden
                   Respondents                      respondents    responses per   response  (in    (in hours)
                                                                    respondent        hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Food safety program officials...................           1,100               1               2           2,200
Water safety program officials..................             500               1               2           1,000
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.......................................  ..............  ..............  ..............           3,200
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    Dated: January 26, 2010.
Maryam I. Daneshvar,
Acting Reports Clearance Officer, Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2010-2058 Filed 1-29-10; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P