[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 13 (Thursday, January 21, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3423-3424]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-01041]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-16-16KB; Docket No. CDC-2016-0010]


Proposed Data Collection Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

AGENCY: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of 
Health and Human Services (HHS).

ACTION: Notice with comment period.

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SUMMARY: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part 
of its continuing efforts 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 Act of 1995. This notice invites comment on a proposed 
information collection project entitled ``Measuring Perceived Self-
Escape Competencies among Underground Mineworkers''. The purpose of 
this two-year information collection is to gather survey data from up 
to 800 underground coal miners to measure their perceived competence in 
the critical knowledge, skills, and abilities that could be required 
for successful escape from an underground mine emergency.

DATES: Written comments must be received on or before March 21, 2016.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CDC-2016-
0010 by any of the following methods:
    Federal eRulemaking Portal: Regulation.gov. Follow the instructions 
for submitting comments.
    Mail: Leroy A. Richardson, Information Collection Review Office, 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE., MS-
D74, Atlanta, Georgia 30329.
    Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name 
and Docket Number. All relevant comments received will be posted 
without change to Regulations.gov, including any personal information 
provided. For access to the docket to read background documents or 
comments received, go to Regulations.gov.

    Please note: All public comment should be submitted through the 
Federal eRulemaking portal (Regulations.gov) or by U.S. mail to the 
address listed above.


FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To request more information on the 
proposed project or to obtain a copy of the information collection plan 
and instruments, contact the Information Collection Review Office, 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE., MS-
D74, Atlanta, Georgia 30329; phone: 404-639-7570; Email: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 
(PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520), Federal agencies must obtain approval from 
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for each collection of 
information they conduct or sponsor. In addition, the PRA also requires 
Federal agencies to provide a 60-day notice in the Federal Register 
concerning each proposed collection of information, including each new 
proposed collection, each proposed extension of existing collection of 
information, and each reinstatement of previously approved information 
collection before submitting the collection to OMB for approval. To 
comply with this requirement, we are publishing this notice of a 
proposed data collection as described below.
    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.

Proposed Project

    Measuring Perceived Self-Escape Competencies among Underground 
Mineworkers--New--National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health 
(NIOSH), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    The mission of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and 
Health (NIOSH) is to promote safety & health at work for all people 
through research and prevention. The Federal Mine Safety & Health Act 
of 1997, Public Law 91-173 as amended by Public Law 95-164, enables 
NIOSH to carry out research that is relevant to health and safety of 
workers in the underground coal industry. After a thorough review of 
United States' underground coal mine emergency escape preparedness and

[[Page 3424]]

response, the National Academy of Sciences (NRC, 2013) has emphasized 
the need to improve underground mineworkers' ability to successfully 
escape a mine emergency. Specifically, several mine disasters of 2006 
raised a number of issues about mine emergency preparedness and 
response particularly as they relate to self-escape competencies. The 
resulting federal regulations under the MINER Act of 2006, now require 
all underground coal miners receive Self Contained Self Rescuer (SCSR) 
and escape way training quarterly throughout the year and new emergency 
communications and tracking systems have been mandated and installed in 
underground coal mines.
    NIOSH proposes this exploratory two-year study to better 
characterize the current state of miner self-escape competence and to 
answer the following questions:
     What gaps exist between what miners are required to do for 
self-escape and their perceptions of their actual capabilities?
     How might miner demographics and mine-specific 
characteristics (e.g., size, mining method, and geographic location) 
relate to perceived competence in self-escape knowledge, skills, 
abilities, and other characteristics? Based on the results of this and 
other concurrent exploratory work, interventions to increase mine 
escape competencies will be improved and/or developed and assessed 
which could lead to more standardized self-escape training and 
assessment throughout the industry.
    The information collected will have practical utility in efforts to 
enhance the ability of miners to successfully escape from underground 
coal mines in the event of an emergency by identifying gaps in 
perceived competence in specific knowledge and skills in moving through 
the mine, avoiding dangers, and using protective equipment. This 
information collections will contribute to our understanding of actual 
miner capabilities from the perspective of the mineworkers themselves.
    Data collection will occur above ground at a variety of coal mines 
(and other above ground facilities) to gather information from a 
diverse sample of mines to better reflect the variability (e.g., size, 
mining method, geographic location) that exists among mines and could 
impact self-escape procedures and resource availability. Variability in 
mineworker and mining site characteristics is key to generating a 
cross-sectional snapshot of current mineworkers' perceived self-escape 
competence and may reveal any potential relationships among these 
characteristics and perceived competence in a variety of self-escape 
KSAOs. This data collection will occur once for each mine site over the 
next 2 years (after OMB approval) and is designed to gather information 
not previously available. The results produced are expected to lead to 
recommendations for emphasis in new and/or existing KSAO training and 
preparation as well as to inform future self-escape training and 
research development.
    Descriptive and inferential statistics on data obtained from the 
survey will be used to quantify miner self-escape competence and to 
identify any statistically significant relationships among aggregated 
miner characteristics and perceived competence. Finally, the data will 
serve as a gross baseline measure of miner self-escape competence to be 
directly compared to future data collection utilizing the identical 
data collection instrument.
    NIOSH researchers will visit up to 20 underground coal mine sites 
to obtain informed consent from volunteer participants and administer a 
short paper and pencil survey. The survey will include demographic 
questions and 25 questions related to participants' perceived 
confidence in their own ability to escape their mine in the event of an 
emergency.
    Participants will be mining personnel drawn from multiple operating 
underground coal mines to represent the variety within the industry. 
The timing of the data collection schedule will be flexible and 
modified as needed to minimize disruption to mine operations. No more 
than 800 miner volunteers will participate in the study over two years. 
Minimal time (< 5 minutes each) will be spent in recruitment and 
obtaining informed consent. The survey is expected to take no longer 
than 10 minutes to complete
    The total estimated annualized burden hours are 101.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                     Number of    Average burden
      Type of respondent            Form name        Number of     responses per   per response    Total burden
                                                    respondents     respondent      (in hours)         hours
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Mine Operator.................  Mine Recruitment              10               1            5/60               1
                                 Script.
Mine Worker...................  Individual Miner             400               1            5/60              33
                                 Recruitment
                                 Script.
Mine Worker...................  Survey..........             400               1           10/60              67
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.....................  ................  ..............  ..............  ..............             101
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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. 2016-01041 Filed 1-20-16; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P