[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 172 (Tuesday, September 6, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 61217-61218]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-21296]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-16-0607; Docket No. CDC-2016-0087]


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 The National 
Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) to continue collecting state-
based surveillance data on violent deaths that will provide more 
detailed and timely information.

DATES: Written comments must be received on or before November 7, 2016.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CDC-2016-
0087 by any of the following methods:
    Federal eRulemaking Portal: Regulations.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

    The National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), (OMB Control 
No. 0920-0607, Expiration 10/31/2017)--Revision--National Center for 
Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    Violence is an important public health problem. In the United 
States, suicide and homicide are the second and third leading causes of 
death, respectively, in the 1-34 year old age group. Unfortunately, 
public health agencies do not know much more about the problem than the 
numbers and the sex, race, and age of the victims, or information 
obtainable from the standard death certificate. Death certificates, 
however, carry no information about key facts necessary for prevention 
such as the relationship of the victim and suspect and the 
circumstances of the deaths. Furthermore, death certificates are 
typically available 20 months after the completion of a single calendar 
year. Official publications of national violent death rates, e.g. those 
in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, rarely use data that is less 
than two years old.
    Local and Federal criminal justice agencies such as the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provide slightly more information about 
homicides, but they do not routinely collect standardized data about 
suicides, which are in fact much more common than homicides. The FBI's 
Supplemental Homicide Report (SHRs) does collect basic information 
about the victim-suspect relationship and circumstances related to the 
homicide. SHRs, do not link violent deaths that are part of one 
incident such as homicide-suicides. It also is a voluntary system in 
which some 10-20 percent of police

[[Page 61218]]

departments nationwide do not participate. The FBI's National Incident 
Based Reporting System (NIBRS) provides slightly more information than 
SHRs, but it covers less of the country than SHRs. NIBRS also only 
provides data regarding homicides. Also, the Bureau of Justice 
Statistics Reports do not use data that is less than two years old.
    CDC requests OMB approval in order to revise its state-based 
surveillance system for violent deaths that will provide more detailed 
and timely information. The surveillance system captures case record 
information held by medical examiners/coroners, vital statistics (i.e., 
death certificates), and law enforcement. Data is collected by each 
state in the system and entered into a web system administered by CDC. 
Information is collected from these records about the characteristics 
of the victims and suspects, the circumstances of the deaths, and the 
weapons involved. States use standardized data elements and software 
designed by CDC. Ultimately, this information will guide states in 
designing, targeting, and evaluating programs that reduce multiple 
forms of violence. Neither victim's families nor suspects are contacted 
to collect this information; it all comes from existing records and is 
collected by state health department staff or their subcontractors. The 
number of hours per death required for the public agencies working with 
NVDRS states to retrieve and then refile their records is estimated to 
be 0.5 hours per death. Moving forward, we will no longer include state 
abstractors' time spent abstracting data in our estimates of public 
burden for NVDRS because state abstractors are funded by CDC to do this 
work. This significantly reduces the estimated public burden associated 
with NVDRS.
    The president has submitted plans to fund the expansion of the 
state-based surveillance system to collect information in all 50 U.S. 
states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. This revision 
will allow 10 new state health departments, and 7 territorial 
governments to be added to the currently funded 39 state health 
departments (Maine and Vermont are funded as one entity), the health 
department of the District of Columbia, and 1 territorial government, 
resulting in a total of 59 states and territories to be included in the 
state-based surveillance system. Violent deaths include all homicides, 
suicides, legal interventions, deaths from undetermined causes, and 
unintentional firearm deaths. The average state will experience 
approximately 1,000 such deaths each year.
    There are no costs to respondents other than their time.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                     Number of    Average burden   Total burden
      Type of respondent            Form name        Number of     responses per   per response      hours (in
                                                    respondents     respondent      (in hours)        hours)
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Public Agencies...............  NVDRS Web System              59           1,000           30/60          29,500
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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. 2016-21296 Filed 9-2-16; 8:45 am]
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