[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 189 (Friday, September 30, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 59425-59427]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-21221]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-22-0222; Docket No. CDC-2022-0118]


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 effort to reduce public burden and maximize the 
utility of government information, invites the general public and other 
federal agencies the opportunity to comment on a continuing information 
collection, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This 
notice invites comment on a proposed information collection project 
titled the Collaborating Center for Questionnaire Design and Evaluation 
Research (CCQDER). This Generic Clearance request allows CDC to conduct 
cognitive testing activities, and includes a general questionnaire for 
development, pre-testing, and measurement-error reduction activities to 
be carried out in 2022-2025.

DATES: CDC must receive written comments on or before November 29, 
2022.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CDC-2022-
0118 by either of the following methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: www.regulations.gov. Follow 
the instructions for submitting comments.
     Mail: Jeffrey M. Zirger, Information Collection Review 
Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road 
NE, MS H21-8, Atlanta, Georgia 30329.
    Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name 
and Docket Number. CDC will post, without change, all relevant comments 
to www.regulations.gov.
    Please note: Submit all comments through the Federal eRulemaking 
portal (www.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 Jeffrey M. Zirger, Information Collection 
Review Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton 
Road NE, MS H21-8, Atlanta, Georgia 30329; Telephone: 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 the OMB for approval. To 
comply with this requirement, we are publishing this notice of a 
proposed data collection as described below.
    The OMB is particularly interested in comments that will help:
    1. Evaluate whether the proposed collection of information is 
necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, 
including whether the information will have practical utility;
    2. Evaluate the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of 
the proposed collection of information,

[[Page 59426]]

including the validity of the methodology and assumptions used;
    3. Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to 
be collected;
    4. Minimize the burden of the collection of information on those 
who are to respond, including through the use of appropriate automated, 
electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques or 
other forms of information technology, e.g., permitting electronic 
submissions of responses; and
    5. Assess information collection costs.

Proposed Project

    The Collaborating Center for Questionnaire Design and Evaluation 
Research (CCQDER) (OMB Control No. 0920-0222, Exp. 09/30/2024)--
Revision--National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), Centers for 
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

    Section 306 of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act (42 U.S.C. 
242k), as amended, authorizes that the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services (DHHS), acting through NCHS, shall undertake and support (by 
grant or contract) research, demonstrations, and evaluations respecting 
new or improved methods for obtaining current data to support 
statistical and epidemiological activities for the purpose of improving 
the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of health services in the 
United States.
    The Collaborating Center for Questionnaire Design and Evaluation 
Research (CCQDER) is the focal point within NCHS for questionnaire and 
survey development, pre-testing, and evaluation activities for CDC 
surveys such as the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), the 
Research and Development Survey (RANDS) (including RANDS COVID), and 
other federally sponsored surveys. The CCQDER is requesting three years 
of OMB Clearance for this generic submission.
    The CCQDER and other NCHS programs conduct cognitive interviews, 
focus groups, in-depth or ethnographic interviews, usability tests, 
field tests/pilot interviews, and experimental research in laboratory 
and field settings, both for applied questionnaire development and 
evaluation as well as more basic research on measurement errors and 
survey response. Various techniques to evaluate interviewer 
administered, self-administered, telephone, Computer Assisted Personal 
Interviewing (CAPI), Computer Assisted Self-Interviewing (CASI), Audio 
Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing (ACASI), and web-based 
questionnaires are used.
    The most common questionnaire evaluation method is the cognitive 
interview. The interview structure consists of respondents first 
answering a draft survey question and then providing textual 
information to reveal the processes involved in answering the test 
question. Specifically, cognitive interview respondents are asked to 
describe how and why they answered the question as they did. Through 
the interviewing process, various types of question-response problems 
that would not normally be identified in a traditional survey 
interview, such as interpretive errors and recall accuracy, are 
uncovered. By conducting a comparative analysis of cognitive 
interviews, it is also possible to determine whether particular 
interpretive patterns occur within particular sub-groups of the 
population. Interviews are generally conducted in small rounds totaling 
40-100 interviews; ideally, the questionnaire is re-worked between 
rounds, and revisions are tested iteratively until interviews yield 
relatively few new insights.
    Cognitive interviewing is inexpensive and provides useful data on 
questionnaire performance while minimizing respondent burden. Cognitive 
interviewing offers a detailed depiction of meanings and processes used 
by respondents to answer questions--processes that ultimately produce 
the survey data. As such, the method offers an insight that can 
transform understanding of question validity and response error. 
Documented findings from these studies represent tangible evidence of 
how the question performs. Such documentation also serves CDC data 
users, allowing them to be critical users in their approach and 
application of the data.
    In addition to cognitive interviewing, a number of other 
qualitative and quantitative methods are used to investigate and 
research measurement errors and the survey response process. These 
methods include conducting focus groups, usability tests, in-depth or 
ethnographic interviews, and the administration and analysis of 
questions in both representative and non-representative field tests. 
Focus groups are conducted by the CCQDER. They are group interviews 
whose primary purpose is to elicit the basic sociocultural 
understandings and terminology that form the basis of questionnaire 
design. Each group typically consists of one moderator and four to 10 
participants, depending on the research question. In-depth or 
ethnographic interviews are one-on-one interviews designed to elicit 
the understandings or terminology that are necessary for question 
design, as well as to gather detailed information that can contribute 
to the analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data. Usability 
tests are typically one-on-one interviews that are used to determine 
how a given survey or information collection tool functions in the 
field, and how the mode and layout of the instrument itself may 
contribute to survey response error and the survey response process.
    In addition to these qualitative methods, NCHS also uses various 
tools to obtain quantitative data, which can be analyzed alone or 
analyzed alongside qualitative data to give a much fuller accounting of 
the survey response process. For instance, phone, internet, mail, and 
in-person follow-up interviews of previous NCHS survey respondents may 
be used to test the validity of survey questions and questionnaires and 
to obtain more detailed information that cannot be gathered on the 
original survey. Field or pilot tests may be conducted on both 
representative and non-representative samples, including those obtained 
from commercial survey and web panel vendors. Beyond looking at 
traditional measures of survey errors (such as item missing rates and 
non-response, and don't know rates), these pilot tests can be used to 
run experimental designs in order to capture how different questions 
function in a field setting. Similar methodology has been adopted by 
other federal agencies, as well as by academic and commercial survey 
organizations.
    In 2022-2025 NCHS/CCQDER staff plans to continue research on 
methods evaluation and general questionnaire design research. We 
envision that over the next three years, NCHS/CCQDER will work 
collaboratively with survey researchers from universities and other 
federal agencies to define and examine several research areas, 
including, but not limited to: (1) differences between face-to-face, 
telephone, and virtual/video-over internet cognitive interviewing; (2) 
effectiveness of different approaches to cognitive interviewing, such 
as concurrent and retrospective probing; (3) reactions of both survey 
respondents and survey interviewers to the use of Computer Assisted 
Personal Interviewing (CAPI), Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview 
(ACASI), video-over internet/virtual; (4) social, cultural and 
linguistic factors in the question response process; and (5) 
recruitment and respondent participation at varying levels of incentive 
in an effort to establish

[[Page 59427]]

empirical evidence regarding remuneration and coercion. Procedures for 
each of these studies will be similar to those applied in the usual 
testing of survey questions. For example, questionnaires that are of 
current interest (such as RANDS and NIOSH) may be evaluated using 
several of the techniques described above, or different versions of a 
survey question will be developed, and the variants then administered 
to separate groups of respondents in order to study the cognitive 
processes that account for the differences in responses obtained across 
different versions.
    These studies will be conducted either by CCQDER staff, DHHS staff, 
or NCHS contractors who are trained in cognitive interviewing 
techniques. The results of these studies will be applied to our 
specific questionnaire development activities in order to improve the 
methods that we use to conduct questionnaire testing, and to guide 
questionnaire design in general.
    CDC requests OMB approval for an estimated 21,905 annualized burden 
hours. There is no cost to respondents other than their time to 
participate.

Estimated Annualized Burden Table

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                                                                     Number of     Average hours
     Types of respondents           Form name        Number of     responses per   per response    Total burden
                                                    respondents     respondent      (in hours)         hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Individuals or households.....  Eligibility                4,400               1            5/60             367
                                 Screeners.
Individuals or households.....  Developmental              8,750               1           55/60           8,021
                                 Questionnaires.
Individuals or households.....  Respondent Data            8,750               1            5/60             729
                                 Collection
                                 Sheet.
Individuals or households.....  Focus Group                  225               1             1.5             338
                                 Documents.
Individuals or households.....  RANDS                     49,800               1           15/60          12,450
                                 Methodological
                                 Surveys.
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.....................  ................  ..............  ..............  ..............          21,905
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Jeffrey M. Zirger,
Lead, Information Collection Review Office, Office of Scientific 
Integrity, Office of Science, Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2022-21221 Filed 9-29-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P