[Federal Register Volume 90, Number 111 (Wednesday, June 11, 2025)]
[Notices]
[Pages 24617-24618]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2025-10618]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[30Day-25-1408]


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 the National Center 
for Health Statistics (NCHS) Rapid Surveys System (RSS) [OMB 0920-
1408], which includes fielding several surveys per year. The 06/30/2023 
clearance approved the round 1 survey. A second, third, fourth, fifth, 
and sixth round of the RSS were additionally approved. 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 
the seventh round (Round 7) 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

    Rapid Surveys System (RSS) Round 7 (OMB Control No. 0920-1408) 
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 RSS (OMB control No. 0920-1408) 
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 facilitate 
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 several 
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

[[Page 24618]]

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 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.
    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. 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 social and work limitation, employment, health information 
technology use, telephone use, marital status, language used at home 
and in other settings, and civic engagement. All of 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 or other suitable federal surveys for benchmarking 
to evaluate data quality. Panelists in the RSS will be asked about 
health status, life satisfaction, chronic conditions, diabetes, veteran 
status, health care access and utilization, mental health, and body 
mass index. Female panelists will be asked about their pregnancy 
history and family planning.
    The estimated total annual burden hours for the three-year approval 
period remains at 28,079 burden hours. The NCHS RSS Round 7 (2025) data 
collection is based on 8,000 complete surveys (2,664 hours). There are 
no costs to respondents other than their time.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                                     Number of    Average burden
          Type of respondents                   Form name            Number of     responses per   per response
                                                                    respondents     respondent      (in hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adults 18+............................  Survey: NCHS RSS Round 7           8,000               1           20/60
Adults 18+............................  Cognitive Interviews....              20               1               1
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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. 2025-10618 Filed 6-10-25; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163-18-P