[Federal Register Volume 77, Number 173 (Thursday, September 6, 2012)]
[Notices]
[Pages 54887-54889]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2012-21979]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Census Bureau


Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; 2013 Census 
Test

AGENCY: U.S. Census Bureau, Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort 
to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public 
and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on 
proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13 (44 U.S.C. 
3506(c)(2)(A)).

DATES: To ensure consideration, written comments must be submitted on 
or before November 5, 2012.

ADDRESSES: Direct all written comments to Jennifer Jessup, Departmental 
Paperwork Clearance Officer, Department of Commerce, Room 6616, 14th 
and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet 
at [email protected]).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or 
copies of the information collection instrument(s) and instructions 
should be directed to Jason Machowski, Census Bureau, HQ-3H468F, 
Washington, DC 20233; (301) 763-4173 (or via email at 
[email protected]).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

I. Abstract

    During the years preceding the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau will 
continue to pursue its commitment to reducing the costs of conducting a 
decennial census, while maintaining the level of quality achieved for 
previous ones. A primary decennial census cost driver is the employment 
of a large temporary staff to collect data from members of the public 
from which the Census Bureau received no reply via initially offered 
response options. Increasing the number of people who take advantage of 
self-response options (such as completing a paper questionnaire and 
mailing it back to the Census Bureau) can contribute to a less costly 
census with high-quality results.
    The 2013 Census Test will give the Census Bureau an opportunity to 
investigate a variety of different strategies and methods aimed at 
increasing the use of self-response options in a decennial census. An 
overall objective of the Census Bureau is to increase participation by 
making it easier for respondents to know about and to respond to the 
decennial census. As part of this data collection, the Census Bureau 
will test different strategies for contacting the public to notify and 
to remind them about the decennial census. In addition, the Census 
Bureau will offer multiple modes to self-respond.
    The 2013 Census Test will also encompass research in additional key 
areas. One area pertains to testing different field data collection 
procedures for obtaining data from those who do not self-respond to the 
decennial census. Another area involves collecting data on attitudes 
regarding contact strategies, response modes, and other proposed 
methods of data collection. The Census Bureau will recontact a sample 
of those who self-responded, those who responded to a Census Bureau 
employee, and those who did not respond at all. The data collection to 
obtain respondent attitudes will be conducted by telephone.
    The results from the 2013 Census Test will inform Census Bureau 
planners who are guiding the design of additional 2020 Decennial Census 
research on the topics summarized briefly above and discussed in more 
detail below.
    Contact Strategies--In the past, the Census Bureau sent a letter to 
most areas of the country alerting households that a census 
questionnaire was on its way. Then the Census Bureau delivered a 
questionnaire, which contained a unique Census ID. The Census Bureau 
also sent a follow-up mailing in the form of a postcard to remind 
respondents to return their questionnaires, if they had not already 
done so.
    For this test, the Census Bureau is intending to use multiple 
contact modes to notify respondents to participate in the census, to 
provide them instructions for completing a census questionnaire, and to 
remind them to respond. In addition to mail, the Census Bureau is 
considering contacting respondents by email and text messages using 
contact information purchased from commercial data vendors. In advance 
of this test, the Census Bureau will address any policy issues 
surrounding the use of email and text messages.
    The email and text messages will contain an interactive link to a 
Census Bureau Internet site that respondents can click on to respond to 
the census. The Census Bureau plans to embed into the link an 
identifier that is unique to the respondent and their notification mode 
(for example, the same respondent with both an email and text account 
may have a unique identifier for each one). This identifier will allow 
the Census Bureau to measure the effectiveness of each mode of 
notification and to determine any response differences by demographic 
group or geographic area (such as urban, suburban, and rural).
    In addition to altering the mode of contact, the Census Bureau will 
vary both the content of messages sent and the timing of when 
respondents will receive them. This testing will help the Census Bureau 
to develop effectively worded messages and delivery schedules that are 
optimized for each mode of contact. The Census Bureau will measure the 
effectiveness of differing mode, message content, and time of delivery 
on the response rate. This analysis will include breakdowns by various 
demographic populations.
    Self-Response Options--Respondents will initially have the option 
to respond to this test via the Internet, or through telephone 
questionnaire assistance using a toll-free number and speaking with an 
operator. The Census Bureau

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will later mail a paper questionnaire to all households that have not 
responded to the notifications described above by completing their 
census questionnaire on-line or by telephone by a pre-determined date. 
The Census Bureau will measure the response rates for the different 
self-response options to determine if there is an increase in self-
response and a reduction in the workload to collect data from 
nonrespondents and its associated costs.
    Field Follow-up--A sample of households that do not self-respond by 
a yet to be determined date will have a Census Bureau employee collect 
their data during an operation referred to as Nonresponse Followup 
(NRFU). The Census Bureau will hire temporary staff as needed to 
perform this operation.
    The current NRFU procedure is to initially make a personal visit to 
an address to conduct an interview. If no one comes to the door during 
this visit, NRFU interviewers leave a notice informing the resident(s) 
of the interview attempt. Interviewers can leave a telephone number on 
the notice of visit encouraging the resident to call them back. If the 
resident calls an interviewer or an interviewer obtains a telephone 
number for a household (from a neighbor, for example), the interviewer 
can conduct the interview over the telephone instead of making another 
personal visit.
    As part of the overall effort to reduce the operational cost of 
NRFU, this test will explore alternatives to the current NRFU 
procedures for contacting households. For example, the Census Bureau 
will experiment with the number of attempts to contact each household 
before allowing the field staff to obtain information from proxy 
respondents. Doing so will supplement research already done on this 
topic and will help planners to determine the optimal number of in-
person visits and telephone contacts to make during this operation. The 
Census Bureau also wishes to learn whether altering the way 
interviewers contact a household for the first time (that is, by 
telephone instead of by personal visit) results in a more efficient way 
to conduct NRFU (telephone contact is considerably less expensive than 
personal visit). To explore this alternative, the Census Bureau plans 
to provide field staff with telephone numbers from commercial data 
vendors for addresses in their workload, so they can first contact 
respondents using the telephone rather than making the first contact a 
personal visit.
    The Census Bureau will also test different notification strategies 
and messages that the census staff can leave at the household. One 
strategy is to leave instructions for the household on how to use the 
Internet to submit responses to the census. Obtaining an Internet 
response in this type of a scenario can save the expense associated 
with census staff making a return visit (or a telephone contact).
    The Census Bureau will use the newly devised mobile computing 
devices to conduct interviews and will enter the responses into the 
device rather than recording them on paper questionnaires. The mobile 
computing device can automate manual tasks such as managing the field 
staff work assignment. The Census Bureau expects to use the mobile 
computing device to collect a more complete and accurate recording of 
attempts to complete an interview than has been possible in the past 
with only paper questionnaires. Obtaining better data on the actual 
number of contact attempts will help planners to develop future contact 
strategies. In addition, the Census Bureau may allow respondents to 
self-respond directly on the mobile computing device during a personal 
visit.
    Attitudinal Survey--The Census Bureau will recontact a sample of 
respondents and nonrespondents by telephone in a follow-up survey to 
explore attitudes regarding contact modes, response modes, use of 
administrative records to collect data, and other proposed methods of 
data collection. The Census Bureau will notify potential survey 
participants (at the time they self-respond or when they complete a 
NRFU interview) that they may be recontacted via telephone for a survey 
about their experience.

II. Method of Collection

    The Census Bureau will select a sample of up to 160,000 housing 
addresses for the 2013 Census Test. The majority of the addresses 
(approximately 60 percent) will be located in several different 
geographic test sites (locations to be determined). The Census Bureau 
will attempt to select geographic test sites that comprise urban, 
suburban, and rural areas as well as contain a diversity of socio-
economic populations. However, budget limitations may affect the final 
selection. Approximately 40 percent of these addresses will be randomly 
selected from a national sample. Current plans do not target Tribal 
sites and group quarters addresses for this test due to limitations of 
sample size and budget. The Census Bureau estimates a 45 percent self-
response rate overall. The Nonresponse Followup workload will be no 
more than 40,000 household addresses in the geographic test sites due 
to budget limitations. Of the 40,000 addresses, the Census Bureau will 
recontact approximately five percent for purposes of quality assurance.
    The sample size for the attitudinal survey will be no more than 
50,000 households comprised of 25,000 respondents and 25,000 
nonrespondents. The sample will be drawn from a cross section of the 
national sample and the different geographic test sites. In order to 
reduce costs, the quality assurance sample will be drawn from the same 
nonrespondents sampled for the attitudinal survey. During the 
attitudinal survey, we will ask this quality assurance sample if the 
NRFU interviewer visited the household. The Census Bureau estimates 
that it will take 10 minutes to complete this additional survey for 
respondents and 12 minutes to complete the survey for nonrespondents.
    In general, the 2010 Census Questionnaire will be the basis of the 
questions asked during this test. While the question topics will remain 
the same, the Census Bureau may revise question wording based upon 
further research and testing, such as results from the 2012 National 
Census Test (OMB 0607-0970). The Census Bureau estimates that it will 
take the average household 10 minutes to complete the questionnaire. It 
includes probes (such as, are there any college students listed) that 
attempt to find people not initially listed on the housing unit roster 
and people that have multiple residences. The Census Bureau plans to 
identify housing units that are more likely to answer positively to 
each probe and to change the order of the probes in the non-paper 
questionnaires, so the most relevant probe is asked first for that 
housing unit. In addition, the questionnaire may need modification 
based on mode (Internet, or Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing 
(CATI)) to improve the flow of the wording. The Census Bureau will 
design the form for viewing on different Internet, CATI, and mobile 
computing device platforms used by the field staff (sometimes referred 
to as Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing, or CAPI).
    All households in the sample will initially receive a notification 
to participate in the 2013 Census Test by email or letter sent in the 
mail. Reminder notifications will be sent by several methods: email, 
text message, postcard in the mail, or letter in the mail. The exact 
content and timing of the notifications are still under consideration. 
Respondents will have

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the option to self-respond to this test initially using the Internet or 
telephone assistance. If the respondents do not respond using Internet 
or telephone by a date to be determined, the Census Bureau will mail a 
paper questionnaire to those households. This follow-up contact is the 
only way that a respondent will receive a paper questionnaire in this 
test.
    For a sample of households that do not self-respond, the Census 
Bureau will conduct a Nonresponse Followup (NRFU) operation. The Census 
Bureau will use mobile computing devices to conduct interviews and will 
enter responses into the device. The Census Bureau will also recontact 
some respondents as part of quality assurance activities of its field 
staff.
    Finally, the Census Bureau will conduct a follow-up telephone 
survey for a sample of respondents and nonrespondents to explore 
attitudes regarding contact modes, response modes, use of 
administrative records to collect data, and other proposed methods of 
data collection.
    Timing--Census Day for the purpose of this test is June 1, 2013. 
The Census Bureau will begin to notify households in May 2013, and the 
data collection activities will conclude during or before September 
2013.

III. Data

    OMB Control Number: 0607-XXXX.
    Form Number: TBD.
    Type of Review: Regular submission.
    Affected Public: Individuals or Households.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: 212,000.
    Estimated Time Per Response: 10 minutes for census form and 10 to12 
minutes for the attitudinal survey.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 36,167.
    Estimated Total Annual Cost: Respondents who are contacted by cell 
phone and/or text message may incur charges depending on their plan 
with their service provider. The Census Bureau estimates that the total 
cost to respondents will be no more than $840,000. There are no other 
costs to respondents other than their time to participate in this data 
collection.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C. Sections 141 and 193.

IV. Request for Comments

    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 
(including hours and cost) 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.
    Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized 
and/or included in the request for OMB approval of this information 
collection; they also will become a matter of public record.

    Dated: August 31, 2012
Glenna Mickelson,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2012-21979 Filed 9-5-12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P