The Census Bureau plans to conduct additional research under the generic clearance for questionnaire research (OMB clearance number 0607-0725). We plan to conduct cognitive interviews for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) pretesting project.
The ACA is set for implementation in 2014 but in 2006 Massachusetts passed similar legislation at the state level. We would like to conduct qualitative work in Massachusetts to explore how to ask people (in English and Spanish) about participation in an “Exchange” – a key feature of the ACA that will introduce novel ways of obtaining health coverage.
From March through August, 2012, a contractor will be conducting a maximum of 84 cognitive interviews (each with a single participant). Participants will be recruited based on their likely participation in an Exchange. The contractor will employ two recruiting methods concurrently: (1) conventional; and (2) mailings to known Exchange enrollees via the “Connector” (the administrative arm of the Exchange in Massachusetts). Regarding the former, flyers (in both Spanish and English; see Enclosure 1) will be posted at medical clinics and (if possible) emergency rooms serving rural and lower income clients as well at facilities that provide ESL training. Newspapers, Craigslist.com, MassLive.com and other online sites will also be used. Those interested will be invited to call and a telephone screener (see Enclosure 2) will be conducted to determine eligibility for the study.
Regarding the latter, a conditional agreement has been reached with the Connector, pending final approval from their internal IRB. The expectation is that the Connector will draw samples of names and addresses of their enrollees and have their printing/mailing vendors send a letter (see Enclosure 3) inviting enrollees to call a number regarding the study. The same screener used in conventional recruiting will be used to determine eligibility of the Connector enrollees. This method has never been used before so there is no way to estimate the response rate to the mailings; hence it is impossible to specify the exact number and timing of these mailings. However, the maximum number of letters that could be sent under this agreement is 17,000.
Respondents will be informed that the survey is being conducted under the authority of Title 13, that their involvement is voluntary and that the information they provide is confidential and will be seen only by employees involved in the research project. Participants will be asked to sign a consent form (see Enclosure 4).
The maximum burden estimate for completion of this pretesting activity is 120 hours. The cognitive interviews will average one hour, for a total of 84 hours. The conventional recruiting is estimated to take 12 hours (100 calls at an average of 7 minutes per call). The recruiting of known Exchange enrollees is estimated to take 20 hours, based on the estimate of one percent of letter recipients calling in and being screened on the telephone (1% * 17,000 * 7 minutes).
The contact person for questions regarding data collection and study design is listed below:
Joanne Pascale
Research Social Science Research Analyst
Center for Survey Measurement
U.S. Census Bureau
4600 Silver Hill Road
Washington, D.C. 20233
301-763-4920
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | pasca001 |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-02-02 |