Letter of proposal

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES Public Health Service

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

National Center for Health Statistics

3311 Toledo Road

Hyattsville, Maryland 20782

April 21, 2010

Margo Schwab, Ph.D.

Office of Management and Budget

725 17th Street, N.W.

Washington, DC 20503

Dear Dr. Schwab:

The staff of the NCHS Questionnaire Design Research Laboratory (QDRL) plans to conduct research to evaluate questions on voice, swallowing, speech, language, and general health for the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and evaluate questions on creatine and lifestyle for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) under (OMB No. 0920-0222, exp. 03/31/2013).

We propose to start advertising for volunteer participants as soon as we receive clearance and to start testing as soon as possible after that.

Background Information about Cognitive Testing of Questionnaires

The methodological design of this proposed study is consistent with the design of typical cognitive testing research. As you know, the purpose of cognitive testing is to obtain information about the processes people use to answer survey questions as well as to identify any potential problems in the questions. The analysis will be qualitative.

Proposed project: NHIS Voice, Swallowing, Speech, Language and NHANES Creatine and Lifestyle Questions

This project will conform to the usual QDRL procedures for cognitive testing of a questionnaire module.

The proposed NHIS Voice, Swallowing, Speech & Language questions will be asked of sample adults (aged 18 and over) and of the same adults for proxy sample children. The questions to be cognitively tested primarily focus on problems with voice, swallowing, speech, or language. For respondents with children aged 18 months to 8 years, questions will also be asked about problems with speech. The proposed NHANES questions will be asked of the same sample adults (aged 18 and over) and focus on creatine and lifestyle.

We propose to recruit 20 adults (aged 18 years and older) through a combination of a newspaper advertisement and flyers. The newspaper advertisement/flyer is shown in Attachment 1.

The newspaper advertisement/flyer will be used to recruit respondents who have difficulty hearing, swallowing, stuttering, stammering, hoarse or raspy voice, and/or have a minor child who may have a speech problem. Within these constraints, we hope to recruit participants with some demographic variety (particularly in terms of gender, education, race/ethnicity, and income).

Interviews will be conducted in the QDRL with as many as 20 respondents for 60 minutes each. With the consent of the participants, the interviews will be recorded on videotape or audiotape. Participants will be informed of taping procedures (including observation if applicable) in the process of reviewing the consent forms, and the equipment will be turned on once it is clear that the procedures are understood and agreed upon.

The testing instrument is shown in Attachment 2. At the end of the interviews, participants will be paid and provided with copies of all papers they signed.

We propose paying participants $40, which is our standard payment. In total, for this project, the maximum respondent burden will be 20 hours of interviewing in addition to travel time. An updated burden table for this project is shown below:

Projects	Number of Participants	Number of Responses/ Participant	Average hours per response	Response burden
QDRL Interviews
1) NCHS Surveys	20	1	1	20

Attachments (2)

cc:

M. Moien

M. Daneshvar

S. Perryman

2