[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 14 (Thursday, January 22, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3237-3239]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2015-01009]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-15-15KX]


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 and maximize the utility 
of government information, 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

[[Page 3238]]

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 A. 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

    Assessing Community-Based Organizations' Partnerships with Schools 
for the Prevention of HIV/STDs--New--Division of Adolescent and School 
Health (DASH), National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and 
TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    HIV infections remain high among young men who have sex with men 
(YMSM). The estimated number of new HIV infections increased between 
2008 and 2010 both overall and among MSM ages 13 to 24. Furthermore, 
sexual risk behaviors associated with HIV, other sexually transmitted 
disease (STD), and pregnancy often emerge in adolescence. For example, 
2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) data revealed 
47.4% of U.S. high school students reported having had sex, and among 
those who had sex in the previous three months, 39.8% reported having 
not used a condom during last sexual intercourse. In addition, 2001-
2009 YRBSS data revealed high school students identifying as gay, 
lesbian, and bisexual and those reporting sexual contact with both 
males and females were more likely to engage in sexual risk-taking 
behaviors than heterosexual students.
    Given the disproportionate risk for HIV among YMSM ages 13-24, it 
is important to find ways to reach the younger youth (i.e., ages 13-19) 
in this range to decrease sexual risk behaviors and increase health-
promoting behaviors such as routine HIV testing. Schools provide one 
opportunity for this. Because schools enroll more than 22 million teens 
(ages 14-19) and often have existing health and social services 
infrastructure, schools and their staff members are well-positioned to 
connect youth to a wide range of needed services, including housing 
assistance, support groups, and sexual health services such as HIV 
testing. As a result, CDC's DASH has focused a number of HIV and STD 
prevention efforts on strategies that can be implemented in or centered 
on schools.
    However, conducting HIV and STD prevention work (particularly work 
that is designed to specifically meet the needs of YMSM), can be 
challenging. School is not always a welcoming environment for lesbian, 
gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Harassment, 
bullying, and verbal and physical assault are often reported, and such 
unsupportive environments and victimization among LGBT youth are 
associated with a variety of negative outcomes, including truancy, 
substance use, poor mental health, HIV and STD risk, and even suicide. 
Schools build partnerships with community-based organizations to 
increase access to needed services of LGBTQ youth.
    The CDC requests a 3-year OMB approval to conduct a new information 
collection entitled, ``Assessing Community-Based Organizations' 
Partnerships with Schools for the Prevention of HIV/STDs.'' The 
information collection will allow CDC to conduct assessment of selected 
staff from community-based organizations (CBOs) and health and/or 
wellness centers (HWCs), including school-based health centers, at 
participating schools or to which YMSM from participating schools are 
referred. This is part of the HIV and STD prevention efforts that are 
taking place in conjunction with local education agencies (LEAs) funded 
by the CDC, Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) under 
strategy 4 (School-Centered HIV/STD Prevention for Young Men Who Have 
Sex with Men) of PS13-1308: Promoting Adolescent Health through School-
Based HIV/STD Prevention and School-Based Surveillance. This 
information collection will provide data and reports for the three 
funded LEAs, and will allow each LEA to identify areas of the 
partnerships with CBOs and HWCs that are working well and other areas 
that will need additional improvement. In addition, the findings will 
allow the CDC to determine the potential impact of currently 
recommended strategies and make changes to those recommendations if 
necessary.
    This information collection system involves administration of a 
web-based questionnaire to no more than 60 total staff members who work 
for up to 60 CBOs and HWCs that are participating in the HIV/STD 
prevention project with the three LEAs (Broward County Public Schools 
in Broward County, Florida; Los Angeles Unified School District in Los 
Angeles, California; and San Francisco Unified School District in San 
Francisco, California) funded by CDC cooperative agreement PS13-1308. 
These LEAs represent all funded LEAs under Strategy 4 of PS13-1308. The 
questionnaire will include questions on the following topics: services 
offered by the organization and the organization's relationships with 
the school district and participating schools in the LEA.
    The Web-based instrument will be administered in the 2015 and again 
in 2016 and 2018. These data collection points coincide with the 
initiation of project activities, the mid-way point, and endpoint of 
the PS13-1308 cooperative agreement. Although some respondents may 
participate in the data collection in multiple years, this is not a 
longitudinal design and individual staff member responses will not be 
tracked across the years. No personally identifiable information will 
be collected and data will only be reported in the aggregate to protect 
the CBOs and HWCs being represented.
    All respondents will receive informed consent forms prior to 
participation in the information collection. The consent form explains 
the study and also explains that participants may choose not to 
complete the Web-based questionnaire with no penalty and no impact on 
their job or relationship with

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the LEA. Participation is completely voluntary.
    For the Web-based questionnaire, the estimated burden per response 
is about 60 minutes (1 hour). This estimate of burden is an average and 
takes into account that the length of the questionnaire for each 
respondent will vary slightly due to the skip patterns that may occur 
with certain responses, variations in the reading speed of respondents, 
and variations in the time required to collect the information needed 
to complete the questionnaire.
    The estimated annualized burden of this data collection is 60 hours 
for respondents.
    There are no costs to respondents other than their time.

                                    Estimated Annualize Burden to Respondents
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                     Number of    Average burden
          Respondents               Form name        Number of     responses per   per response    Total burden
                                                    respondents     respondent      (in hours)      (in hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CBO staff.....................  CBO Assessment                30               1               1              30
                                 Questionnaire.
HWC staff.....................  HWC Assessment                30               1               1              30
                                 Questionnaire.
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.....................  ................  ..............  ..............  ..............              60
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Leroy A. 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. 2015-01009 Filed 1-21-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P