Letter to Dr. Schwab

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

March 1, 2012

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) (Generic OMB No. 0920-0222, exp. 03/31/2013) plans to conduct research (genIC) to evaluate 1) a selected set of questions on the Healthy People 2020 Asthma Supplement and 2) immuno-compromised prevalence questions, both for the 2013 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).

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: Selected 2013 NHIS Question Evaluation

The questions we are evaluating appear as Attachment 1. The testing procedure will conform to the cognitive interviewing techniques that have been described in our generic OMB clearance package.

As many as twenty-five 60-minute cognitive interviews may be conducted with adults (aged 18 years and older) who have weakened immune systems, have asthma or have a child aged 17 and under who has asthma. In addition, we hope to recruit respondents with demographic variety (particularly in terms of education, race/ethnicity, and income).

We plan to recruit respondents through a combination of a newspaper advertisement, flyers, and our QDRL Respondent Database. The newspaper advertisement/flyer is shown in Attachment 2.

Cognitive Interviews will be conducted by QDRL staff members in the QDRL with an individual respondent 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.

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 25 hours of interviewing in addition to travel time. The burden for this genIC project is shown below:

Projects	Number of Participants	Number of Responses/ Participant	Average hours per response	Response burden
QDRL Interviews
1) NCHS Surveys	25	1	1	25

Attachments (2)

cc:

M. Moien

T. Richardson

K. Lane

DHHS RCO

2