Memo 1

This document provides a Supporting Statement to accompany a request for approval of collection of information for the Evaluation of the Parents Speak Up National Campaign (PSUNC): Focus Groups. This collection was originally entitled the Evaluation of the National Abstinence Media Campaign (NAMC): Focus Groups.

A. Justification

This section provides detailed justification for the request for approval of collection of information via focus groups for the Evaluation of the PSUNC. A separate OMB application for collection of information via longitudinal surveys of parents for the PSUNC evaluation was published in the Federal Register on September 6, 2006 and December 6, 2006.

1. Need and Legal Basis

This program is authorized by Section 301(a) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 241(a), as amended). The Parents Speak Up National Campaign is a $10 million effort to encourage and help parents talk early and often to their pre-teens and teens about waiting to have sex. Funds for the Parents Speak Up National Campaign were made available under the authority provided in Public Law 108-447/ HR 4818-326, Consolidated Appropriations Act, (Appendix A). The campaign will include public service announcement (PSA)-type spots and print advertisements, as well as guide parents to a Web site, 4parents.gov. This Web site provides information to parents of pre-teens and teens on sex, sexual development, and parenting; it also provides some information for teens. The campaign’s primary target audience is parents of pre-adolescent and adolescent children.

The focus group component of the evaluation is designed to complement longitudinal surveys of parents, described in the information collection request published in the November 9, 2006 Federal Register. A total of 16 focus groups will be conducted with parents of children aged 10 to 13. Two groups of mothers and two groups of fathers will be conducted for each of the following groups: non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic African Americans, English-speaking Hispanics, and Spanish-speaking Hispanics. Focus groups will be conducted in three cities in different regions of the country: Raleigh, NC; New York, NY; and Denver, CO.

2. Information Users

The purpose of the focus group data collection is to help evaluate the Parents Speak Up National Campaign by learning qualitatively why parents may or may not change their attitudes and/or behaviors as a result of exposure to campaign messages. It will provide in-depth understanding of parents’ views about their influence on children’s sexual attitudes and behaviors, and about parents’ reactions to the PSUNC materials.

Key research questions for exploration in the focus groups are presented in Exhibit 1. A copy of the focus group discussion guide is attached in Appendix B. Focus group participants will also fill out a brief questionnaire related to the topics covered in the focus groups, to given to them after the discussion. The questionnaire is presented in Appendix C. The questionnaire will be printed on different colors of paper for male and female groups, so that the gender of the respondent will be obtained without asking a question about it.

The information obtained from the proposed data collection activities will help the evaluation staff to interpret the quantitative results of the evaluation (conducted via surveys)—e.g., possible reasons for parental responses to survey questions may be suggested by the more in-depth information obtained in the focus groups. It will also inform the Office of Population Affairs (OPA), policy makers, parents, prevention practitioners, and researchers about parental reactions to the campaign messages—e.g, the parents’ interpretation of the content of the messages, importance and relevance of the messages to them, style of presentation, credibility of people in the PSAs, whether they would take action as a result of seeing the messages, and suggestions for future ads. This information will enable the OPA to more effectively address abstinence education among children. Finally, the data provided from the proposed evaluation may be used for an understanding of the appropriateness for continued or expanded funding and dissemination of the campaign.

Exhibit 1. Research Questions

Questions regarding teen abstinence and parent-child communication

To what extent do parents talk with their pre-teen children about sex in general and delaying sexual activity in particular?
What factors influence the extent to which parents talk to their pre-teen children about sex?
How much effect do parents think they have on their children’s sexual behavior?

Questions regarding the PSUNC materials

To what extent do parents understand/like/believe/relate to the materials?
How effective do they think the message is at (a) motivating and (b) enabling parents to talk to their children about sex and/or abstinence?

3. Use of Information Technology

Data collection will not involve the use of information technology. There was no effort to incorporate the use of information technology in this study to reduce burden. This decision was made based on the estimated usefulness of qualitative data obtained during the focus group discussion. The focus group methodology emphasizes the importance of the group dynamic achieved by the physical presence of all participants, interaction with the focus group moderator, and comfort obtained through face-to-face conversation. Therefore, use of technology would limit the type of responses and dynamic achievable through interpersonal focus groups.

4. Duplication of Similar Information

This data collection differs from the longitudinal survey of parents information collection request in that this study will collect qualitative feedback from parents who observe the PSUNC ads rather than quantitatively assessing outcomes of parents observing or not observing the ads and/or other elements of the PSUNC.

Because the PSUNC is a new campaign, it has never before been evaluated, and this evaluation to understand parents’ responses to the campaign will provide entirely new information, not duplicated by any existing information. . The evaluation is also new and therefore, does not duplicate previous efforts. In designing the proposed data collection activities, we have taken several steps to ensure that this effort does not duplicate ongoing efforts and that no existing data sets would address the proposed study questions. To ensure that this study is forging new ground in our understanding of the efficacy of the Parents Speak Up National Campaign public service announcements, we conducted an extensive review of the literature by examining several large periodical journal databases. We identified published articles or books containing the keywords, “adolescent,” “youth,” “abstinence,” and “parent-child communication.” In addition, to reviewing published information, we searched for “gray” literature by contacting well-known researchers in the field and by exploring the Internet. Searches were performed on several Internet search engines, including Google, Yahoo, AltaVista, Medline, and Science Direct, suing search terms “adolescent,” “youth,” “abstinence,” and “parent-child communication.” The results of the literature search and consultation with experts in the field revealed that although a fair amount of research has been conducted on parent-child communication about sex, little has been done to evaluate a media campaign like the Parents Speak Up National Campaign.

5. Small Businesses

No small business will be directly involved in the collection of data in this study.

6. Less Frequent Collection

The present study will complement survey data collected from RTI’s quantitative study of the efficacy of the PSUNC. The findings from this study will yield qualitative information on the factors that may influence the effectiveness of the PSUNC. If this study were not conducted, it would be difficult to determine the reasons why this national campaign may or may be efficacious at encouraging and helping parents to talk to their pre-teens about waiting to have sex. Failure to collect these data could reduce effective use of program resources to benefit parents and children. Data will be collected at just one point in time.

There are no legal obstacles to reduce the burden.

7. Special Circumstances

There are no special circumstances that require data collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with 5 CRF 1320.5 (d)(2).

8. Federal Register Notice/Outside Consultation

A 60-day Federal Register Notice was published in the Federal Register on November 9, 2006, in volume 71, number 217, pp. 65826 and provided a 60-day period for public comments (See Appendix D). There were no public comments.

For this project, OPA and RTI consulted with key stakeholders (listed in Exhibit 2) with experience in the field of abstinence education, health promotion media campaigns, including Web-based campaigns, and cross-cultural marketing, in order to gather input on the evaluation design, research questions, and survey instruments. These consultations took place in 2006.

Exhibit 2. Contact Information for Parties Contacted for Outside Consultation

Parents Speak Up National Campaign Evaluation Stakeholders

Sarah Brown Kristin Moore

Director Director

National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Child Trends

(202) 478-8578 (202) 572-6002

[email protected] [email protected]

Angela Griffiths Patricia Sulak

Executive Director Professor, OB/Gyn

Await & Find Scott and White Hospital

(510) 690-0137 (254) 724-4034

[email protected] [email protected]

Stacy Ladd Jeff Tanner

Former Director of an Abstinence Associate Dean, Professor of Marketing

Education Program Baylor University

(254) 724-7359 (254) 710-3485

[email protected] [email protected]

Bruce LongFox Leslee Unruh

Executive Director Founder & President

Rural America Initiatives National Abstinence Clearinghouse

(605) 341-3339 (605) 335-3643

[email protected] [email protected]

Rebecca Maynard Stan Weed

Professor, Graduate School of Education Director

University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research and Evaluation

(215) 898-3558 (801) 966-5644

[email protected] [email protected]

Parents Speak Up National Campaign Media Contractor Staff

Jeff Rosenberg

President

Rosenberg Communications

(301) 545-1141

[email protected]

9. Payment/Gift to Respondents

A $75 incentive will be offered to participants who attend the focus group discussions. Based on our experience, a smaller incentive would not appear sufficiently attractive to many parents to motivate their participation in the study. Numerous empirical studies have shown that incentives can significantly increase response rates (e.g., Abreu & Winters, 1999; Shettle & Mooney, 1999).

10. Confidentiality

All procedures have been developed, in accordance with federal, state, and local guidelines, to ensure that the rights and, privacy, and confidentiality of parents are protected.

Approval of the study by the RTI Institutional Review Board (IRB) will be obtained by the end of the OMB review period. RTI will not collect any identifying information for respondents, and all respondents will be assured that the information they provide will be treated in a confidential secure manner, unless otherwise compelled by law. A copy of the informed consent materials provided in writing to respondents, which include assurances of confidentialitydescribes the ways in which participants’ privacy will be protected, is provided in Appendix E. RTI staff will tell participants they do not need to use their real names to identify themselves to other participants, and will ask all participants to agree not to identify any participants if they talk about the contents of the discussion with others. RTI staff will assure respondents that their names will not be associated with responses provided. Respondents will be told that the information obtained from the focus groups will be combined into a summary report so that details of individual responses cannot be linked to a specific participant.

To ensure data security, all RTI project staff are required to adhere to strict standards and to sign a statement of confidentiality as a condition of employment on this project. RTI maintains restricted access to all data preparation areas (i.e., receipt, coding, and data entry). All data files on multi-user systems will be under the control of a database manager, with access limited to project staff on a “need-to-know” basis only. No individual identifying information will be collected, and no names or other respondent identifiers will be contained in any reports.

We will seek approval and review by the OS Privacy Act Coordinator, Maggie Blackwell.

11. Sensitive Questions

The major focus of the PSUNC is to promote parent-child communication about waiting to have sex, and the discussion guide includes questions about parents’ attitudes toward teen sexual activity. These questions might be considered sensitive by some respondents. This information is necessary in order to assess parents’ receptiveness to the campaign messages. The informed consent protocol apprises respondents that this topic will be covered during the discussion. As with all information collected, these data will be presented without any identifiers.

12. Burden Estimate (Total Hours & Wages)

The total burden is estimated at 320 hours. Exhibit 3 provides details about how this estimate was calculated. We estimate that we will need to screen 10 people for each focus group participant we eventually recruit. Sixteen focus groups of 6-8 participants each will be conducted, resulting in a maximum of 128 participants. We therefore estimate that we will need to screen 1280 people in order to recruit 128 participants. Screening will take an average of 5 minutes (3/60 hour) per person, for a total burden of 64 hours. Each of the 128 focus group participants will spend 2 hours responding within the focus group, for a total response burden of 256 hours. The total response burden for both screening and focus group participation is therefore 320 hours.

Exhibit 3. Estimated Response Burden

Form Name/Respondent Type	Number of Respondents	Number of Responses/ Respondent	Average Burden per Response (in hours)	Total Response Burden (in hours)
Participant screening	1280	1	3/60	64
Evaluation of the PSUNC: Focus Groups comprised of parent/parent surrogates of children aged 10-13 years old.	128	1	2	256
TOTAL				320

12A. Estimated Annualized Burden Hours

This study will take place over 1 year, therefore the estimated total hours and wages also serve as the estimated annualized burden hours. Two hundred fifty-six hours are estimated for the year.

12B. Estimated Annualized Cost to Respondents

Persons screened are subject to no direct costs other than their time to be screened. Focus group participants are subject to no direct costs other than their time to participate and the cost of transportation to the focus group site. There are no start-up or maintenance costs. Because it is not known what the wage rate category will be for persons screened or focus group participants (or even whether they will be employed at all), the figure of $6.00 per hour was used as an estimate of average minimum wage across the country. The estimated annual cost to parents for the hour burdens for collections of information will be $384.00 for the screening and $1536.00 for the focus groups, for a total of $1920.00 for the study overall. (See Exhibit 4)

Exhibit 4. Estimated Cost to Respondents

Type of Respondent	Total Burden Hours	Hourly Wage Rate	Total Respondent Costs
Participant screening	64	$6.00**	$384.00
Focus Group participant: parent/parent surrogates of children aged 10-13 years old.	256	$6.00**	$1,536.00
TOTAL			$1920.00

**Estimates of average hourly living allowance for participants.

13. Capital Costs (Maintenance of Capital Costs)

There are no capital costs associated with this study.

14. Costs to Federal Government

With the expected extended period of performance, the cost estimate for the completion of this contract will be $1,328,289 over 2 years. This total cost covers all PSUNC evaluation activities and includes information collection and other evaluation tasks not included in this OMB application. This is the cost estimated by the contractor, RTI International, and includes the estimated cost of coordination with the OPA and the media contractor; evaluation plan development; collecting and reviewing relevant documents, existing data, and information from key stakeholders; instrument development and testing; RTI IRB and OMB applications; data collection; analysis; reporting; and progress reporting. Annual cost to the federal government is estimated to be $664,144.50 ($1,328,289/2).

15. Program or Burden Changes

There is no change in burden requested, as this is a new information collection.

16. Publication and Tabulation Dates

The project timeline is presented in Exhibit 5.

Exhibit 5. Timeline

OMB approval	April 2007
Complete discussion guide and protocol	April 2007
Recruit focus group participants	May-June 2007
Conduct focus groups	July 2007
Analyze data	July-August 2007
Prepare and submit draft final report	September 2007
Revise and submit final report	October 2007

Audio tapes from the focus groups will be transcribed and entered into a software package designed to perform qualitative data analysis (NVivo). Transcripts will be coded and analyzed around key topics. Differences across types of groups (by the parents’ gender and racial/ethnic group) will be analyzed and reported on.

Findings will be summarized and shared with OPA and relevant stakeholders for comment and interpretation. A report on the focus group findings will be prepared, summarizing findings regarding topics such as participants’ attitudes toward abstinence among young people, issues surrounding parent-teen communication about sex, reactions to the ads (both positive and negative), and suggestions for improvement. The report will also discuss limitations in the methodology and data; recommendations for improvement of the campaign ad viewed in the groups; and a technical appendix providing documentation of data collection, data coding, and analysis procedures.

17. Expiration Date

The OMB expiration date will be displayed on all data collection instruments.

18. Certification Statement

There are no exceptions to the certification statement.

Collection of Information Employing Statistical Methods

Statistical methods will not be used. This study will employ focus group techniques to acquire in-depth understanding of the barriers parents face in communicating with their pre-teen children about waiting to have sex and of the reasons why the PSUNC campaign messages are or are not viewed as being effective in helping them to overcome those barriers.

RTI International will conduct a total of 16 focus groups in 3 sites (Raleigh, NC; Denver, CO and New York City, NY). Focus groups will be composed of between 6 and 8 participants, all of whom will be parents of children between the ages of 10 and 13. Separate groups will be held for mothers and fathers, by racial/ethnic group (non-Hispanic Black, Non-Hispanic White, and Hispanic).

Exhibit 6 demonstrates the number of groups by race/ethnicity and gender:

Exhibit 6. Focus Groups by Location and Race/Ethnicity

	Raleigh, NC	New York, NY	Denver, CO	Total
Non-Hispanic Black mothers	1	1		2
Non-Hispanic Black fathers	1	1		2
Non-Hispanic White mothers	1		1	2
Non-Hispanic White fathers	1		1	2
English-speaking Hispanic mothers		1	1	2
English-speaking Hispanic fathers		1	1	2
Spanish-speaking Hispanic mothers	1	1		2
Spanish-speaking Hispanic fathers	1	1		2
Total	6	6	4	16

RTI will contract with the Henne Group (THG) to recruit participants via a variety of approaches (e.g., advertising, flyers, networking, proprietary databases). Recruitment will begin approximately 1 month before each focus group is scheduled to be held. The screener used to recruit participants is presented in Appendix F. All participants will receive a reminder call the one to two days before the focus group is to take place. The script for this call is provided in Appendix G. In the event that more recruits show up at the focus group than are needed, screening techniques will be used to select a diverse group of participants within the specific gender and race/ethnicity group (e.g., parents of boys and girls, single parents and parents who live with the child’s other parent, etc.)

Focus groups will be held at THG-arranged facilities in each of the selected sites. It is anticipated that the focus group discussions will take approximately two hours of the participants’ time. They will receive $75 for their participation.

Data collection design, collection, and analysis will all be performed by Ellen Wilson.

Ellen K. Wilson, Ph.D.

919-316-3337

[email protected]

RTI International

3040 Cornwallis Road

Research Triangle Park, NC 27709

The agency personnel responsible for receiving and approving contract deliverables is Leslie Raneri.

Leslie Raneri

(240) 453-2813

[email protected]

Office of Population Affairs/DHHS

1101 Wotton Parkway, Suite 700

Rockville, Maryland 20852

File Type	application/msword
File Title	January 2004
Author	Olivia Silber Ashley
Last Modified By	Ellen Wilson
File Modified	2007-08-07
File Created	2007-08-07