Healthy_Kids_Challenge_Emergency-2-_26-2010

In the legislation that established the USDA (Department of Agriculture Organic Act of 1862, 7 U.S.C. 2201), Congress gave the Department authority for nutrition education and information dissemination. The Act called for “the general design and duties of which shall be to acquire and diffuse among the people of the United States useful information on subjects connected to agriculture and rural development.” A 1977 amendment added “…aquaculture and human nutrition…” to the subjects specified.

The National Agricultural Research, Extension, and Teaching Policy Act of 1977 directed the Secretary to carry out the following specific functions related to nutrition education and information: (1) Conduct research in human nutrition education activities; (2) Coordinate research, extension and teaching in the food and agricultural sciences conducted or financed by USDA or by other Federal agencies; (3) Establish a national nutrition education program to disseminate results of food and human nutrition research performed by USDA; (4) Establish a Food and Nutrition Information and Education Resources Center within the National Agricultural Library.

On October 22, 1990, the National Nutrition Monitoring and Related Research Act of 1990 were enacted. Title II of the law calls for the Secretaries of Agriculture and Health and Human Services to publish a report entitled, “Dietary Guidelines for Americans” at least every five years. This report will contain nutritional and dietary guidance for the general public. In addition, the law calls for approval by both Secretaries of any dietary guidance for the general population prior to the release of that information to ensure that the guidance is consistent with the “Dietary Guidelines” or is based on new medical or scientific knowledge determined to be valid by the Secretaries. See Appendix A for more details.

b. Justification for Data Collection

The demand for innovative and relevant nutrition education technologies is needed to address the epidemic rates of obesity within the US population and address the promotion of The most recent version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion (CNPP) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) invites developers, programmers, highly motivated gamers and the general public to develop creative and educational games and applications that are based on the Food Nutrition and Consumer Services (FNCS) Dataset. The data has been pre-calculated for common portion sizes and portion increments, which will allow developers to streamline their programming. The calories from solid fats, added sugars, and alcohol in each portion size have also been pre-calculated, to simplify the calculation of calories from “extras.” With childhood obesity continuing to rise, the goal of the Challenge is to motivate talented individuals to create innovative, fun, and engaging applications or games that encourage parents and children, especially "tweens" (aged 9-12), to eat more healthfully and be more physically active. Applications are to be built around educational messages that emphasize one or more key nutrition concepts from the government's principal sources of nutrition guidance and education: Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the MyPyramid Food Guidance System.

2. Indicate how, by whom and for what purpose the information is to be used.

The information will be collection from individuals, companies, organizations, and government agencies to create challenges and award prizes for solving problems.

The purpose of the contest is to develop new and innovative technology to reach children, ages 9-12, either directly or through their parents using the MyPyramid Dataset. This initiative will not only increase access to socially relevant technologies that seek to improve eating and physical activity behaviors among children but could also expand the tools available through the MyPyramid website. The contest will explore ways to address the following behavioral objectives:

Increase consumption of whole grains, fruit and vegetables, low- or non-fat milk, and lean sources of protein
Develop contemporary and relevant nutrition education tools for kids
Address calorie intake and food portion sizes
Increase physical activity

In the Administrator role, Challenge Post is designing, hosting, and maintaining the contest portal throughout the duration of the contest. The portal is an open, public external website that enables contestants to submit descriptions and links to applications and enables users to view and vote on Submissions. Challenge Post is administering and managing the Challenge via the portal. This includes responding to user and contestant inquiries related to contest administration, including rules, deadlines, prizes, and technical assistance. In addition, Challenge Post is assisting in securing judges and prizes and will oversee the judging process. The terms and conditions of the contest, which include a description of the judging process and prizes, are in Appendix C.

Public affected by this project includes programmers, students, technology professionals and gamers who are interested and capable of developing games and applications using the FNCS Dataset.

The Submissions will be judged by an expert judging panel of USDA nutrition experts, child education experts as well as experts from the technology communities. Such judges shall be determined by USDA Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services. Medal Winners (Grand Prize, Second Prize, Third Prize, and Honorable Mention), and the Corporate Recognition Award will be based on scores from the judging panel. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible Submissions received and the quality of submitted Submissions.

All potential challenge winners are subject to verification by sponsor and/or administrator whose decisions are final and binding in all matters related to the challenge.

Contestants will own the intellectual property rights to submitted applications but the USDA will maintain a royalty free license to post or link to the application on the official USDA and nutritional partner websites and make it publically available, if desired. The contest application is provided in Appendix B.

3. Describe whether, and to what extent, the collection of information involves the use of automated, electronic, mechanical, or other technological collection techniques.

All data collection will occur 100 percent electronically. The electronic transmission at www.AppsforHealthyKids.com (will be active on March 8, 2010) automatically stores user’s self-created user ID and password as well as all information developed by the user.

4. Describe efforts to identify duplication.

There is no duplication involved in this information collection. Although there are similar initiatives, such as NYCBigApps and the Health and Human Services Flu Prevention PSA Contest those do not meet our specific needs.

5. Impact on small businesses or other small entities.

Information being requested or required has been held to the minimum required for the intended use.

6. Describe the consequences to Federal program of policy activities if the collection is not conducted or is collected less frequently.

This is a single-time data collection, although the respondents may submit more than once during this collection. Inability to collect this information will result in a decrease in effort for contributing to the goal of achieving the President’s Open Government Initiative.

7. Explain any circumstances that would cause an information collection to be conducted in a manner that is inconsistent with 5 CFR 1320.5.

There are no special circumstances. The collection is conducted in a manner consistent with the guidelines in 5 CFR 1320.5

8. Provide a copy and identify the date and page number of publication in the Federal Register of the agency notice.

A Public Notice was not completed due to the program being launched on March 8, 2010; however, CNPP intends to publish a regular 60-day notice seeking comments from the public.

CNPP has consulted with experts in the field of application development, gaming and socially relevant technology. Their insights have helped to inform the design and administration of the contest. Names of participants who were consulted for this Challenge during the Workshop on February 2, 2010 are:

Aman Bhandari, White House Office of Science & Technology Policy
Reggie Davis, Zynga Game Network
Susan Gold, Global Game Jam

9. Explain any decision to provide any payment of gift to respondents.

No payment or gift will be provided for all respondents Submissions; however, cash awards will be given to the Medal Winners and Popular Choice Winners. The Corporate Recognition Award prize is public acknowledgement and no cash prize. The Grand Prize Medal Winner and Grand Prize Popular Choice Winner will receive a $3,000 cash award. Other Medal Winners will receive cash awards in incremental amounts not to exceed $3,000. If a winning Entrant consists of a team, one cash award of $3,000 will be given to the team to split. Additional prizes for Winners are currently being sought out from other organizations.

10. Describe any assurance of confidentiality provided to respondents.

The Department will comply with the Privacy Act of 1974.

11. Provide additional justification for any questions of a sensitive nature.

This information collection does not involve questions of a sensitive nature.

12. Provide estimates of the hour burden of the collection of information.

The burden on the participant is dependent on the complexity of the game or application they choose to develop. Based on the assumptions provided by Challenge Post, the average time needed for development of a game or application is 55 hours including the 15 minutes needed to complete the application. CNPP anticipates that approximately 100 people will respond to the contest. The Challenge Post and CNPP will not pre-screen participants and will only be aware of responses once applications are submitted. See separate spreadsheet for breakout.

The estimate annualized cost to respondents for this information collection is based on *$18.53 hourly rate is derived from the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, July 2009. See http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

13. Provide an estimate of the total annual cost burden to respondent of record keepers resulting from the collection of information.

There is no capital/startup or ongoing operation/maintenance costs associated with this information collection.

14. Provide estimates of annualized cost to the Federal government.

Challenge Post is administering and managing the Challenge via a portal. This includes contest administration and technical assistance. In addition, Challenge Post will oversee the judging process. There will be a one-time cost to the Federal Government of $50,000. The Federal labor using the 2009 Federal Salary Table for a GS 13 costs associated with the contest planning and execution is $25,000. Total cost to the Federal Government is $75,000.

15. Explain the reasons for any program changes or adjustments reported in Items 13 or 14 of the OMB Form 83-1.

This is a new information collection resulting in a program change of 5,525 burden hours.

16. For collection of information whose results will be published, outline plans for tabulation, and publication.

The information collected from the user will not be used for any research purposes. There are no plans for statistical analyses in publications.

17. If seeking approval to not display the expiration date for OMB approval of the information collection, explain the reasons that display would be appropriate.

CNPP is not seeking exemption from this requirement. If approval is obtained, an OMB Control Number would be posted on the Challenge Post website with all appropriate explanations.

18. Explain each exception to the certification statement identified in Item 19.

There are no exceptions to the certification statement being requested.

File Type	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Author	USDA/FNS
File Modified	0000-00-00
File Created	2021-02-03