[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 92 (Monday, May 13, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 20848-20849]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-09767]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Census Bureau


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management 
and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of 
information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act.
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
    Title: American Community Survey Methods Panel Tests, 2019 Due 
Dates Test.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-0936.
    Form Number(s): ACS-1, ACS internet.
    Type of Request: Non-substantive Change Request.
    Number of Respondents: 144,000.
    Average Hours per Response: 40 minutes.
    Burden Hours: No additional burden hours are requested under this 
non-substantive change request.
    Needs and Uses: The American Community Survey (ACS) collects 
detailed socioeconomic data from about 3.5 million housing units in the 
United States and 36,000 in Puerto Rico each year. The ACS also 
collects detailed socioeconomic data from about 195,000 residents 
living in Group Quarter (GQ) facilities. An ongoing data collection 
effort with an annual sample of this magnitude requires that the ACS 
continue research, testing, and evaluations aimed at reducing 
respondent burden, improving data quality, achieving survey cost 
efficiencies, and improving ACS questionnaire content and related data 
collection materials. The ACS Methods Panel is a research program 
designed to address and respond to issues and survey needs.
    Residents of sampled housing units are invited to self-respond to 
the ACS through a series of up to five mailings. These mailings are 
sent to respondents over approximately six and a half weeks. Research 
has shown that when a request has a sense of urgency, people are more 
likely to comply with the request (Kotter, 2008; Gunelius, 2009). One 
way of creating a sense of urgency is through deadline or due date 
messaging. The current ACS mailings contain implied due date messages, 
such as ``. . . please complete the survey online as soon as possible'' 
or ``If you have not already responded, please do so now'' but do not 
provide an explicit due date. The purpose of this test is to assess the 
effect on self-response of an explicit due date message in the fifth 
mailing.
    Six experimental treatments are proposed. One treatment will serve 
as the control and will not contain an explicit due date. The other 
treatments will vary the use and placement of a due date.
    This test will study the impact on self-response and cost of 
including a due date in the fifth mailing. To field this test, the 
Census Bureau plans to use the ACS production sample (clearance number: 
0607-0810, expires 06/30/2020). Thus, there is no increase in burden 
from this test since each treatment will result in the same burden 
estimate per interview (40 minutes). The Census Bureau proposes to test 
the use of due date messages as part of the ACS September or October 
2019 panel, adhering to the same data collection protocols as 
production ACS.
    The ACS sample design consists of randomly assigning each monthly 
sample panel into 24 groups of approximately 12,000 addresses each. 
Each group, called a methods panel group, within a monthly sample is 
representative of the full monthly sample. Each monthly sample is a 
representative subsample of the entire annual sample and is 
representative of the sampling frame. The Census Bureau proposes to use 
two randomly selected methods panel groups for each treatment. Hence, 
each treatment will have a sample size of approximately 24,000 
addresses. In total, approximately 144,000 addresses will be used for 
the six experimental treatments. The remaining sample will receive 
production materials.

[[Page 20849]]

    The Census Bureau proposes to evaluate treatment comparisons by 
comparing self-response rates. For each comparison a two-tailed test 
will be used so that the Census Bureau can measure the impact on the 
evaluation measure in either direction with 80 percent power, at the 
[alpha] = 0.1 level. The sample size will be able to detect differences 
of approximately 1.74 percentage points between the self-response 
return rates between two experimental treatments. Additionally, a cost 
analysis will also be conducted.
    Affected Public: Individuals or households.
    Frequency: One-time test as part of the monthly American Community 
Survey.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 13, United States Code, Sections 141, 193, 
and 221.
    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view Department of Commerce 
collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice 
to [email protected] or fax to (202) 395-5806.

Sheleen Dumas,
Departmental Lead PRA Officer, Office of the Chief Information Officer, 
Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2019-09767 Filed 5-10-19; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P