[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 180 (Tuesday, September 19, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 43760-43761]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-19824]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-17-17AVB; Docket No. CDC-2017-0066]


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 ``Leveraging 
the Emerging Field of Disaster Citizen Science to Enhance Community 
Resilience to Improve Disaster Response'' project. This project will 
include individual and group interviews of citizen scientists and their 
partners and will field a nationally representative survey of local 
health departments to understand experiences and perceptions of citizen 
science for disaster preparedness.

DATES: Written comments must be received on or before November 20, 
2017.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CDC-2017-
0066 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.

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 Leroy A. Richardson, 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

    Leveraging the Emerging Field of Disaster Citizen Science to 
Enhance Community Resilience to Improve Disaster Response--New--Office 
of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR), Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    OPHPR's mission is to safeguard health and save lives by providing 
a platform for public health preparedness and emergency response. As 
part of its role, OPHPR funds applied research to improve the ability 
of CDC and its partners, including but not limited to state and local 
health departments, emergency management organizations, and health care 
entities, to effectively prepare for and respond to public health 
emergencies and disasters. The proposed information collection project 
is in accordance with OPHPR's mission.
    OPHPR requests approval of a new information collection to learn 
about how the emerging field of disaster citizen science can enhance 
community resilience for a period of one year. This (mixed methods) 
information collection uses interviews and a cross-sectional survey. 
Researchers aim to: (1) Explore the potential of disaster citizen 
science for increasing community resilience, enhancing participation in 
preparedness and response activities, and improving preparedness 
efforts; and (2) provide evidence to inform the development of 
educational and instructional tools for communities and health 
departments to navigate the emerging field of disaster citizen science 
and promote collaborations. CDC will use the insights gained from this 
information collection to inform the development of guidance

[[Page 43761]]

and toolkits for LHDs and community groups so that they can align their 
efforts and strengthen the benefits and positive impacts of citizen 
science activities. For interviews, the information collection will 
target citizen scientists and end users of citizen science data.
    Citizen science is defined as research activities (e.g., data 
collection, analysis, and reporting) performed by members of the 
general public without any particular training in science. Citizen 
science is growing in popularity, fueled in part by growing use of 
smartphones and other personal devices in the population. Although 
citizen collection and use of data during disasters has increased 
exponentially in recent years and there is great policy interest in the 
phenomenon, there has been no robust research to date on the use of, 
barriers to, and impact of citizen science in disasters. Local health 
departments (LHDs) lack tools to respond to and coordinate with citizen 
science activities within communities. Furthermore, citizen science 
organizations lack information on how to organize their activities for 
ultimate impact.
    This is an exploratory study and is the first of its kind to 
explore the growing phenomenon of disaster citizen science. Disaster 
citizen science is a rapidly growing field that is the focus of policy 
interest, but currently devoid of research. This study will generate 
information that can help define the phenomenon of disaster citizen 
science and may result in nationally representative baseline data that 
can support changes in citizen science awareness, barriers, and 
activities.
    While interviews will be hypothesis generating and provide rich 
data on the experiences with citizen science to date across all 
stakeholders active in this enterprise, the nationally-representative 
survey data will allow us to generalize findings to the full population 
of LHDs in the U.S.
    CDC will collaborate with a contractor to implement this project. 
Researchers will target citizen scientists and their partners (e.g., 
academics who work with citizen scientists on research projects) and 
LHDs in a position to use citizen science data to inform public health 
decision-making. For interviews, researchers will sample for maximum 
variation, seeking to obtain variation on U.S. region, type and 
sophistication of citizen science project, type of disaster 
encountered, and previous experience with disaster citizen science.
    The researchers aim to conduct 35-55 individual and group 
facilitated semi-structured interviews, each lasting approximately 60 
minutes, to cover topics including benefits and uses of citizen 
science, barriers to and facilitators of citizen science, and strengths 
and limitations of citizen science activities and resources. 
Researchers will identify potential interview participants through 
literature reviews and snowball sampling in a phased approach starting 
with citizen science and LHD organizations. Researchers will sample for 
maximum variation in order to capture the full range of citizen 
scientist and health department experiences on this topic.
    For the survey, the researchers will target a nationally 
representative sample of 600 local health officials and will apply 
survey weights to ensure that findings have external validity and can 
be generalized to LHDs in the U.S. The survey, which will take 30 
minutes to complete, will include questions on both citizen science as 
applied to disaster preparedness and response, and citizen science as 
occurring in other contexts (such as environmental health)to draw 
lessons for preparedness and response.
    OPHPR anticipates that the knowledge resulting from this research 
project will contribute significantly to the evidence base for 
preparedness and response and lead to improved efficiency, 
effectiveness, and outcomes in several domains.
    Participation in this study is voluntary. There are no costs to 
respondents other than their time. A summary of annualized burden hours 
is below.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                     Number of    Average burden
      Type of respondents           Form name        Number of     responses per   per response    Total burden
                                                    respondents     respondent      (in hours)      (in hours)
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Citizen scientists and their    Interview Guide               55               1           75/60              69
 partners; local health          (semi-
 officials.                      structured
                                 questionnaire).
Local health departments......  Survey..........             300               1           30/60             150
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    Total.....................  ................  ..............  ..............  ..............             219
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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. 2017-19824 Filed 9-18-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4163-18-P