[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 156 (Tuesday, August 15, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 55459-55460]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-17480]


-----------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[30Day-23-1408]


Agency Forms Undergoing Paperwork Reduction Act Review

    In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Centers 
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received approval from the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to conduct Rapid Surveys System 
(RSS) (OMB Control No. 0920-1408), which includes fielding four surveys 
per year. The 06/30/2023 approval gave clearance for Round 1 of the 
survey. In accordance with the Terms of Clearance NCHS will publish a 
30-day Federal Register Notice announcing each new survey so that 
public comments can be received about the specific content of each 
survey. This Notice includes specific details about the questions that 
would be asked in Round 2 of the RSS and serves to allow 30 days for 
public and affected agency comments, consistent with OMB's Terms of 
Clearance.
    CDC will accept all comments for this proposed information 
collection project. The Office of Management and Budget is particularly 
interested in comments that:
    (a) 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;
    (b) Evaluate the accuracy of the agencies estimate of the burden of 
the proposed collection of information, including the validity of the 
methodology and assumptions used;
    (c) Enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to 
be collected;
    (d) 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 submission of responses; and
    (e) Assess information collection costs.
    To request additional information on the proposed project or to 
obtain a copy of the information collection plan and instruments, call 
(404) 639-7570. Comments and recommendations for the proposed 
information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of 
this notice to www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. Find this particular 
information collection by selecting ``Currently under 30-day Review--
Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search function. Direct 
written comments and/or suggestions regarding the items contained in 
this notice to the Attention: CDC Desk Officer, Office of Management 
and Budget, 725 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20503 or by fax to (202) 
395-5806. Provide written comments within 30 days of notice 
publication.

Proposed Project

    National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Rapid Surveys System 
(RSS) Round 2 (OMB Control No. 0920-1408)--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.), as 
amended, authorizes that the Secretary of Health and Human Services 
(HHS), acting through NCHS, collect data about the health of the 
population of the United States. The NCHS Rapid Surveys System (RSS) 
collects data on emerging public health topics, attitudes, and 
behaviors using cross-sectional samples from two commercially 
available, national probability-based online panels. The RSS then 
combines these data to form estimates that approximate national 
representation in ways that many data collection approaches cannot. The 
RSS collects data in contexts in which decision makers' need for time-
sensitive data of known quality about emerging and priority health 
concerns is a higher priority than their need for statistically 
unbiased estimates.
    The RSS complements NCHS's current household survey systems. As 
quicker turnaround surveys that require less accuracy and precision 
than CDC's more rigorous population representative surveys, the RSS 
incorporates multiple mechanisms to carefully evaluate the resulting 
survey data for their appropriateness for use in public health 
surveillance and research (e.g., hypothesis generating) and facilitates 
continuous quality improvement by supplementing these panels with 
intensive efforts to understand how well the estimates reflect 
populations at most risk. The RSS data dissemination strategy 
communicates the strengths and limitations of data collected through 
online probability panels as compared to more robust data collection 
methods.
    The RSS has three major goals: (1) to provide CDC and other 
partners with time-sensitive data of known quality about emerging and 
priority health concerns; (2) to use these data collections to continue 
NCHS's evaluation of the quality of public health estimates generated 
from commercial online panels; and (3) to improve methods to 
communicate the appropriateness of public health estimates generated 
from commercial online panels. The RSS is designed to have four rounds 
of data collection each year with data being collected by two 
contractors with probability panels. A cross-sectional nationally 
representative sample will be drawn from the online probability panel 
maintained by each of the contractors. As part of the base (minimum 
sample size), each round of data collection will collect 2,000 
responses per quarter. The RSS can be expanded by increasing the number 
of completed responses per round or the

[[Page 55460]]

number of rounds per year as needed up to a maximum of 28,000 responses 
per year per contractor or 56,000 total responses per year. 
Additionally, each data collection may include up to 2,000 additional 
responses per quarter (8,000 for the year) to improve 
representativeness. This increases the maximum burden by up to 16,000 
responses per year. The RSS may also target individual surveys to 
collect data only from specific subgroups within existing survey panels 
and may supplement data collection for such groups with additional 
respondents from other probability or nonprobability samples. An 
additional 12,000 responses per year may be used for these 
developmental activities. Survey questions being asked of the panelists 
will be cognitively tested. This cognitive testing will help survey 
users interpret the findings by understanding how respondents answer 
each question.
    Each round's questionnaire will consist of four main components: 
(1) basic demographic information on respondents to be used as 
covariates in analyses; (2) new, emerging, or supplemental content 
proposed by NCHS, other CDC Centers, Institute, and Offices, and other 
HHS agencies; (3) questions used for calibrating the survey weights; 
and (4) additional content selected by NCHS to evaluate against 
relevant benchmarks. NCHS will use questions from Components 1 and 2 to 
provide relevant, timely data on new, emerging, and priority health 
topics to be used for decision making. NCHS will use questions from 
Components 3 and 4 to weight and evaluate the quality of the estimates 
coming from questions in Components 1 and 2. Components 1 and 2 will 
contain different topics in each round of the survey. NCHS submits a 
30-day Federal Register Notice with information on the contents of each 
round of data collection.
    NCHS calibrates survey weights from the RSS to gold standard 
surveys. Questions used for calibration in this round of RSS will 
include marital status and employment, social and work limitations, use 
of the internet in general and for medical reasons, telephone use, 
civic engagement, and language used at home and in other settings. All 
these questions have been on the National Health Interview Survey 
(NHIS) in prior years allowing calibration to these data. Finally, all 
RSS rounds will include several questions that were previously on NHIS 
that will be used for benchmarking to evaluate data quality. Panelists 
in the RSS will be asked about health status; chronic conditions; 
social determinants of health; healthcare access and utilization; and 
health behaviors will be used to benchmark the RSS to NCHS survey.
    The estimated total annual burden hours for the three-year approval 
period remains at 28,079 burden hours. There are no costs to 
respondents other than their time. For RSS Round 2, the following hours 
will be used. The NCHS RSS Round 2 (2023) data collection is based on 
13,100 complete surveys (4,367 hours) and 20 cognitive interviews (20 
hours) using the same survey instrument. The total number of responses 
is 13,120 and the total burden is 4,387 hours.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                                      Average
                                                                     Number of       Number of      burden per
          Type of respondents                   Form name           respondents    responses per   response  (in
                                                                                    respondent        hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adults 18+............................  Survey: NCHS RSS Round 2          13,100               1           20/60
                                         (2023) Cognitive
                                         Interviews.
Adult 18+.............................  Cognitive Interviews....              20               1               1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Jeffrey M. Zirger,
Lead, Information Collection Review Office, Office of Public Health 
Ethics and Regulations, Office of Science, Centers for Disease Control 
and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2023-17480 Filed 8-14-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P