[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 204 (Tuesday, October 24, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 73007-73008]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-23407]


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DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Office of the Secretary

[Docket ID: DoD-2023-OS-0100]


Proposed Collection; Comment Request

AGENCY: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and 
Readiness

[[Page 73008]]

(OUSD(P&R)), Department of Defense (DoD).

ACTION: 60-Day information collection notice.

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SUMMARY: In compliance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the 
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness 
announces a proposed public information collection and seeks public 
comment on the provisions thereof. Comments are invited on: 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; the accuracy of the agency's 
estimate of the burden of the proposed information collection; ways to 
enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be 
collected; and ways to minimize the burden of the information 
collection on respondents, including through the use of automated 
collection techniques or other forms of information technology.

DATES: Consideration will be given to all comments received by December 
26, 2023.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by docket number and 
title, by any of the following methods:
    Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the 
instructions for submitting comments.
    Mail: Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant to the 
Secretary of Defense for Privacy, Civil Liberties, and Transparency, 
4800 Mark Center Drive, Mailbox #24, Suite 08D09, Alexandria, VA 22350-
1700.
    Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency 
name, docket number and title for this Federal Register document. The 
general policy for comments and other submissions from members of the 
public is to make these submissions available for public viewing on the 
internet at http://www.regulations.gov as they are received without 
change, including any personal identifiers or contact information.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: To request more information on this 
proposed information collection or to obtain a copy of the proposal and 
associated collection instruments, please write to, Assistant Secretary 
of Defense for Health Affairs, 1200 Defense Pentagon, Washington, DC 
20301, Ms. Kimberly Lahm, 703-681-8184, [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Title; Associated Form; and OMB Number: Understanding Service 
Member Experiences with Family Planning; OMB Control Number: 0704-SMFP.
    Needs and Uses: The recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. 
Jackson Women's Health removed the Constitutional right to abortion. In 
its wake, several states banned or severely restricted access to 
abortion, and several more states are poised to do so. In addition to 
restricting access to abortion, the Dobbs decision raises questions 
about miscarriage and infertility care. Several of the states that have 
severely restricted access to or banned abortion are also home to large 
military instillations. This raises questions about service member 
access to abortion care, as well as a range of family planning options. 
There is little existing research on service members' experiences with 
family planning.
    Building on prior experience executing the DoD Women's Reproductive 
Health Survey (WRHS) and other research on the health and health 
behaviors of service members (e.g., the Health Related Behaviors Survey 
[HRBS]), RAND National Defense Research Institute (NDRI) will conduct a 
series of focus groups with men and women across DoD service branches 
(Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Space Force) to augment this 
survey data and better understand how service members experience family 
planning both within the Military Health System and via community 
providers. These focus groups will also gather information on service 
members' experiences with any new policies that the DoD unveils in 
response to the Dobbs decision.
    This study will highlight areas related to family planning that may 
threaten the DoD's ability to field a ready and lethal force. It will 
also point to areas where DoD may need to augment or develop care, 
programs, services, or policies that provide needed reproductive health 
care and family planning services to the force in order to maintain and 
enhance health, readiness, retention, and lethality.
    Affected Public: Individuals and households.
    Annual Burden Hours: 4,800.
    Number of Respondents: 4,800.
    Responses per Respondent: 1.
    Annual Responses: 4,800.
    Average Burden per Response: 1 hour.
    Frequency: Once.
    The purpose of the data collection effort is to better understand 
service members experiences with family planning services provided by 
both DoD and community providers. Respondents include approximately 
4,800 active duty service members from all service branches (below the 
rank of flag officer) at 24 CONUS installations. Data will be collected 
via 60-minute focus group. These focus groups will be in-person, 
conducted separately by gender (i.e., men vs women) and rank (i.e., E1-
E4, E5-E6, E7-E9/W1-W5, O1-O3, O4-O5, O6). Each group will be led by 
one facilitator and include one notetaker. Consent will be obtained 
verbally at the beginning of each session and each participant will 
receive an information sheet containing the consent information. A 
recruitment flyer will be used to assist installation POCs with 
recruitment.
    Dedicated notetakers will take verbatim notes during each focus 
group and discussion. These notes will be immediately cleaned to remove 
any identifying information (e.g., names, titles). Notes will be 
entered into a COTS software package for analyzing qualitative data 
(e.g., NVivo) and will be stored on RAND-issued laptops and RAND 
servers, both of which require two-factor authentication. A Data Safety 
Plan has been approved for the study.
    A six-item post-focus group survey will also be given to 
participants. The purpose is to collect sociodemographic and military 
characteristics that will be used to understand the representativeness 
of participants compared to the larger active-duty force. The survey 
will be paper-and-pencil and is anonymous. It should take no more than 
two minutes to complete. Data from the survey will be hand-entered into 
Excel and analyzed using the same software.

    Dated: October 18, 2023.
Aaron T. Siegel,
Alternate OSD Federal Register Liaison Officer, Department of Defense.
[FR Doc. 2023-23407 Filed 10-23-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6001-FR-P