[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 142 (Thursday, July 24, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 43054-43055]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-17356]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-14-14APM]


Proposed Data Collections Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part of 
its continuing effort to reduce public 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. To request more information on the 
below proposed project or to obtain a copy of the information 
collection plan and instruments, call 404-639-7570 or send comments to 
Leroy Richardson, 1600 Clifton Road, MS-D74, Atlanta, GA 30333 or send 
an email to [email protected].
    Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized 
and/or included in the request for Office of Management and Budget 
(OMB) approval. 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; (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; and (e) 
estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation, 
maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information. Burden 
means the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by 
persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide information 
to or for a Federal agency. This includes the time needed to review 
instructions; to develop, acquire, install and utilize technology and 
systems for the purpose of collecting, validating and verifying 
information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and 
providing information; to train personnel and to be able to respond to 
a collection of information, to search data sources, to complete and 
review the collection of information; and to transmit or otherwise 
disclose the information. Written comments should be received within 60 
days of this notice.

Proposed Project

    Surveillance of Health-Related Workplace Absenteeism--New--National 
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    There is currently a high global human health risk from emerging 
novel influenza, coronavirus and similar evolving pathogens, which is 
prompting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to 
enhance situational awareness capacity for emergency preparedness and 
response.
    During the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus pandemic, NIOSH/CDC 
conducted a pilot study to test the feasibility of using national 
surveillance of workplace absenteeism to assess the pandemic's impact 
on the workplace to plan for preparedness and continuity of operations 
and to contribute to health awareness during the emergency response. As 
part of this emergency effort, CDC contracted with the American College 
of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM), which has access to 
a large network of affiliated medical directors and corporate health 
units that routinely compile absenteeism data, to conduct enhanced 
passive surveillance of absenteeism using weekly data from a 
convenience sample of sentinel worksites.
    Due to the emergency situation at that time, OMB approval was not 
requested, erroneously, for the data collection activities associated 
with the pilot study. The pilot was conducted without approval under 
the Paperwork Reduction Act. The current request seeks to build off of 
the data collected

[[Page 43055]]

from the pilot and accounts for the burden involving all of the 
participants.
    From September 28, 2009, through March 31, 2010, 79 sentinel 
worksites representing 16 different employers participated in the pilot 
study. Each week, ACOEM collected reports of aggregated absenteeism 
data from the medical directors of the participating companies using an 
emailed, standardized form. ACOEM replaced company names with coded 
unique identifiers, and sent the aggregated data to CDC/NIOSH for 
analysis.
    The major strengths of the sentinel worksite approach to 
absenteeism surveillance were the use of existing, routinely collected 
data and timeliness. The use of existing, routinely collected data made 
the burden on participating companies negligible. Data were routinely 
compiled and thus could be collected and analyzed in near real time, 
making this approach useful, in principle, for providing current 
situational awareness and actionable intelligence that could be used to 
inform, prioritize, and evaluate intervention efforts during the 
pandemic. On the other hand, there were several limitations to the 
sentinel worksite surveillance done in 2009-2010, and the activity was 
not maintained after the H1N1 pandemic ended.
    At present, two new emerging infectious diseases, novel H7N9 
influenza virus and a coronavirus circulating in the Middle East, have 
demonstrated the need to build additional capacity for national 
surveillance for health-related workplace absenteeism so that it can be 
used to monitor the impact of these or any other disease that might 
reach pandemic potential and spread to the U.S.
    NIOSH/CDC requests permission to collect company absenteeism data, 
to be able to assess the impact of disease on a company and to identify 
trends in the spread of influenza or other novel disease states. This 
will provide an additional monitoring system to CDC. The proposed 
project builds on the 2009/10 initiative and modifies the reporting 
format to collect information on a daily versus weekly basis.
    The companies in the program will be those that routinely collect 
absenteeism data thus the burden will be minimal. We will be asking 
companies to record their daily absenteeism numbers into an Excel file 
which can be emailed to ACOEM on a weekly or monthly basis. The Excel 
file will be pre-populated with company name, site and dates to ease 
the reporting burden on companies.
    ACOEM will transmit de-identified information on a weekly or 
monthly basis to NIOSH/CDC who will in turn conduct analysis on an 
aggregate basis. Data will be compiled by state and Department of 
Health and Human Services (HHS) region, as well as nationally to allow 
for trend analysis.
    The initial 16 respondents in the 2009/10 study will be asked to 
participate and an additional 12 companies have indicated an interest 
in participating in the data collection activity. The employee 
population among these 28 companies is approximately 293,000.
    The annualized estimated burden of time is 607 hours for the 28 
respondents in the study. Respondents will complete the form daily; no 
more than 5 minutes per day/per respondent. This results in an 
annualized burden of 607 hours per year.
    There are no costs to participants other than the time.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                                      Average
                                                     Number of       Number of      burden per     Total burden
      Type of respondent            Form name       respondents    responses per   response (in        hours
                                                                    respondent        hours)
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Private.......................  EXCEL data                    28             260            5/60             607
companies.....................   template.
                               ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.....................  ................  ..............  ..............  ..............             607
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Leroy Richardson,
Chief, Information Collection Review Office, Office of Scientific 
Integrity, Office of the Associate Director for Science, Office of the 
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2014-17356 Filed 7-23-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P