[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 135 (Monday, July 19, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 38107-38109]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-15294]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request

    In compliance with Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995 concerning opportunity for public comment on proposed 
collections of information, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration (SAMHSA) will publish periodic summaries of 
proposed projects. To request more information on the proposed projects 
or to obtain a copy of the information collection plans, call the 
SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer at (240) 276-0361 or 
[email protected].
    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collections of 
information are 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

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quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; and 
(d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on 
respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or 
other forms of information technology.

Proposed Project: Survey of State Underage Drinking Prevention 
Policies, Programs, and Practices--(OMB No. 0930-0316)--Extension

    The Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act (the ``STOP 
Act'') (Pub. L. 109-422, reauthorized in 2016 by Pub. L. 114-255) 
states that the ``Secretary [of Health and Human Services] shall . . . 
annually issue a report on each state's performance in enacting, 
enforcing, and creating laws, regulations, and programs to prevent or 
reduce underage drinking.'' The Secretary has delegated responsibility 
for this report to SAMHSA. Therefore, SAMHSA has developed a Survey of 
State Underage Drinking Prevention Policies, Programs, and Practices 
(the ``State Survey'') to provide input for the state-by-state report 
on prevention and enforcement activities related to the underage 
drinking component of the Annual Report to Congress on the Prevention 
and Reduction of Underage Drinking (``Report to Congress'').
    The STOP Act also requires the Secretary to develop ``a set of 
measures to be used in preparing the report on best practices'' and to 
consider categories including but not limited to the following:
    Category #1: Sixteen specific underage drinking laws/regulations 
enacted at the state level (e.g., laws prohibiting sales to minors; 
laws related to minors in possession of alcohol). Note that ten 
additional policies have been added to the Report to Congress pursuant 
to Congressional appropriations language or the Secretary's authority 
granted by the STOP Act;
    Category #2: Enforcement and educational programs to promote 
compliance with these laws/regulations;
    Category #3: Programs targeted to youths, parents, and caregivers 
to deter underage drinking and the number of individuals served by 
these programs;
    Category #4: The amount that each state invests, per youth capita, 
on the prevention of underage drinking broken into five categories: (a) 
Compliance check programs in retail outlets; (b) checkpoints and 
saturation patrols that include the goal of reducing and deterring 
underage drinking; (c) community-based, school-based, and higher-
education-based programs to prevent underage drinking; (d) underage 
drinking prevention programs that target youth within the juvenile 
justice and child welfare systems; and (e) any other state efforts or 
programs that target underage drinking.
    Congress' purpose in mandating the collection of data on state 
policies, programs, and practices through the State Survey is to 
provide policymakers and the public with otherwise unavailable but much 
needed information regarding state underage drinking prevention 
policies and programs. SAMHSA and other federal agencies that have 
underage drinking prevention as part of their mandate use the results 
of the State Survey to inform federal programmatic priorities, as do 
other stakeholders, including community organizations. The information 
gathered by the State Survey has established a resource for state 
agencies and the general public for assessing policies and programs in 
their own state and for becoming familiar with the policies, programs, 
practices, and funding priorities of other states.
    Because of the broad scope of data required by the STOP Act, SAMHSA 
relies on existing data sources where possible to minimize the survey 
burden on the states. SAMHSA uses data on state underage drinking 
policies from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's 
Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS), an authoritative compendium 
of state alcohol-related laws. The APIS data is augmented by SAMHSA 
with original legal research on state laws and policies addressing 
underage drinking to include all of the STOP Act's requested laws and 
regulations (Category #1 of the four categories included in the STOP 
Act, as described above, page 2).
    The STOP Act mandates that the State Survey assess ``best 
practices'' and emphasize the importance of building collaborations 
with federally recognized tribal governments (``tribal governments''). 
It also emphasizes the importance at the federal level of promoting 
interagency collaboration and to that end establishes the Interagency 
Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD). 
SAMHSA has determined that to fulfill the Congressional intent, it is 
critical that the State Survey gather information from the states 
regarding the best practices standards that they apply to their 
underage drinking programs, collaborations between states and tribal 
governments, and the development of state-level interagency 
collaborations similar to ICCPUD.
    SAMHSA has determined that data on Categories #2, #3, and #4 
mandated in the STOP Act (as listed on page 2) (enforcement and 
educational programs; programs targeting youth, parents, and 
caregivers; and state expenditures) as well as states' best practices 
standards, collaborations with tribal governments, use of social 
marketing or counter-advertising campaigns, and state-level interagency 
collaborations are not available from secondary sources and therefore 
must be collected from the states themselves. The State Survey is 
therefore necessary to fulfill the Congressional mandate found in the 
STOP Act. Furthermore, the uniform collection of these data from the 
states over the last ten years has created a valuable longitudinal 
dataset, and the State Survey's renewal is vital to maintaining this 
resource.
    The State Survey is a single document that is divided into four 
sections, as follows:
    Section 1: Enforcement programs to promote compliance with underage 
drinking laws and regulations (as described in Category #2 above);
    Section 2A: Programs and media campaigns targeted to youth, 
parents, and caregivers to deter underage drinking (as described in 
Category #3 above);
    Sections 2B and 2C: State interagency collaboration to implement 
prevention programs and media campaigns, state best-practice standards, 
and collaborations with tribal governments (as described above);
    Section 2D: The amount that each state invests on the prevention of 
underage drinking in the categories specified in the STOP Act (see 
description of Category #4 above) and descriptions of any dedicated 
fees, taxes, or fines used to raise these funds.
    The number of questions in each section is as follows:

Section 1: 38 questions
Section 2A: 15 questions
Section 2B: 12 questions
Section 2C: 10 questions
Section 2D: 10 questions
Total: 85 questions

    Note that the number of questions in Section 2A is an estimate. 
This section asks states to identify up to ten programs that are 
specific to underage drinking prevention. For each program identified, 
there are three follow-up questions. Based on the average number of 
programs per state reported in the State Survey's ten-year history, it 
is anticipated that states will report an average of five programs for 
a total of 15 questions.
    It is anticipated that most respondents will actually respond to 
only a subset of this total. The State Survey is designed with ``skip 
logic,'' which means that

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many questions will only be directed to a subset of respondents who 
report the existence of particular programs or activities.
    No changes in content are proposed for the current version of the 
Survey. Note that the title of the survey has been modified from 
``Survey of State Underage Drinking Prevention Policies and Practices'' 
to ``Survey of State Underage Drinking Prevention Policies, Programs, 
and Practices'' to better reflect the subjects addressed by the State 
Survey questions.
    To ensure that the State Survey obtains the necessary data while 
minimizing the burden on the states, SAMHSA has conducted a lengthy and 
comprehensive planning process. It sought advice from key stakeholders 
(as mandated by the STOP Act) including hosting multiple stakeholders' 
meetings, conducting two field tests with state officials likely to be 
responsible for completing the State Survey, and investigating and 
testing various State Survey formats, online delivery systems, and data 
collection methodologies.
    Based on these investigations, SAMHSA collects the required data 
using an online survey data collection platform (SurveyMonkey). Links 
to the four sections of the survey are distributed to states via email. 
The State Survey is sent to each state governor's office and the Office 
of the Mayor of the District of Columbia. Based on the experience from 
the last ten years of administering the State Survey, it is anticipated 
that the state governors will designate staff from state agencies that 
have access to the requested data (typically state Alcohol Beverage 
Control [ABC] agencies and state Substance Abuse Program agencies). 
SAMHSA provides both telephone and electronic technical support to 
state agency staff and emphasizes that the states are expected to 
provide data from existing state databases and other data sources 
available to them. The burden estimate below takes into account these 
assumptions.
    The estimated annual response burden to collect this information is 
as follows:

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                                                 Number of        Responses/        Burden/       Annual burden
                 Instrument                     respondents       respondent     response (hrs)       (hrs)
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State Survey................................              51                1             17.7            902.7
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    Send comments to Carlos Graham, SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer at 
[email protected]. Written comments should be received by 
September 17, 2021.

Carlos Graham,
Social Science Analyst.
[FR Doc. 2021-15294 Filed 7-16-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4162-20-P