The data collection process does not employ statistical methods. Data collection will take place for the entire universe of community awardees receiving American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) funds to participate in the Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) initiative; 51 respondents will be required to submit data. Additional awards may be announced in the future under different funding. Choosing a smaller sample to survey will not allow for a comprehensive assessment of all community programs. Variation that exists across the awardees cannot be explained without detailed data from all awardees. In addition, in order to guide individual program resource allocation decisions, data are required on an individual program level.
We have developed a Web-based Cost Study Instrument (CSI) to collect information from the awardees (presented in Attachment 3a). All awardees will receive training on using the Web-based tool and a detailed CSI user’s manual (Attachment 3b) will be provided with the instrument to assist the awardees in providing the requested data accurately. Training on the use of the CSI will be provided via a Webinar conducted by RTI International and during a site visit that will be conducted by RTI staff to each awardee prior to the first data collection. Automated data checks will be incorporated in the tool, and this will allow the respondents to review and check data prior to transmission.
Once the data are received, they will be logged and archived. The cost data will then be reviewed for accuracy and completeness. Thorough data validation will be performed to assess the quality of the data available to perform the planned analysis. All data collected in the CPPW CSI will be assessed for missing information (% of fields with missing data) and incorrect data (% data elements with formats that are not recognized; % with inappropriate range of values). Quarterly and at the end of the funding period, we will also review whether the subcategories sum up to the expected total costs. Discrepancies between the total amount of funds expended and the total itemized costs will be identified and clarified with the awardees.
Based on each awardee’s submission, a report will be produced that contains counts and associated percentages for blank field errors, inter-field relationship errors, and inter-record relationship errors, in each data set. The contractor will then have a conference call with program directors who have error reports and, if necessary, identify strategies to improve the integrity of the data. We will then create an aggregated analysis file for generating reports and publications.
All data collection materials are included in the following attachments:
Attachment 3a: CPPW Cost Study Instrument
Attachment 3b: CSI User’s Manual
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) expects that all 51 respondents will participate in this study. Therefore, there should be no nonresponse. We expect all CPPW awardees to report data in a timely manner; however, awardees that have difficulty submitting data will be provided with technical assistance.
Training in the use of the data reporting system will be provided to program directors, or managers, and the support staff assisting with cost data collection and reporting. Awardees will also receive a User’s Manual that provides complete written instructions regarding the cost data submission requirements. This document will support consistent submissions across awardees.
RTI International has conducted two phases of pretesting of the Web-based CSI with seven individuals representing seven CPPW awardees. During pretesting, we assessed the ability of the awardees to understand the data elements requested, identify the cost information required, complete the tool within the allocated time frame, and finalize the time burden estimates.
The information learned from pretesting was used to finalize the CPPW CSI and User’s Manual (see Attachments 3a and 3b). Feedback from pretesting was incorporated to create the final Web-based cost instrument that will serve as the data collection instrument for all of the CPPW awardees.
The CSI requests expenditure details for the following categories:
Labor/Personnel Expenditures
Partner Expenditures
Consultant Expenditures
Costs Associated with Materials, Travel, Services
Other Administrative Costs (e.g., telephone, rent)
Labor and Non-labor in-kind resources
For each category except in-kind resources, the CSI requests information about total spending during the quarter and percentage allocations of total expenditures or time across the awardee’s objectives and strategies. The objectives and strategies will be those specified in the Community Action Plan (CAP) developed by each awardee, although edits can be made by the user. Allocations of spending across objectives and strategies are not requested for administrative costs, which will be allocated using the average proportionate allocation for all other costs. For in-kind resources, the CSI requests hours of donated time for volunteers and estimated value of donated resources for non-labor donations. To ensure that accurate objective-/ strategy-level costs can be estimated for each awardee, the CSI also requests percentage allocations of in-kind resources across the awardee’s objectives/strategies (e.g., 25% time or cost for Objective 1 and 75% for Objective 4).
Using the information collected through the CSI, cost estimates will be generated quarterly, cumulatively, and for the full CPPW initiative. Each quarter, the following costs will be estimated for each respondent (51 respondents in total):
total spending in quarter,
cumulative spending to date,
quarterly and cumulative spending by category (e.g., labor, in-kind), and
quarterly and cumulative spending by objective and by strategy within each objective.
For the final analyses, cost comparisons will be made across awardees. To enable comparisons, unit costs will be estimated, where the unit of analysis may differ across objectives. For example, the unit of analysis of a media campaign to increase physical activity in the county may be county population, while the unit of analysis for initiatives focused on specific public housing complexes may be the number of residents in those complexes. For these comparative analyses, unit-level costs for objectives on which at least 10 awardees worked will be compared across awardees.
Julia Spencer, PhD, MSPH (202-690-7287), of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation is the Principal Investigator and Technical Monitor for the study. She has overall responsibility for overseeing the design and administration of the survey, and she will be responsible for analyzing the survey data.
RTI International is the project contractor responsible for development of the online version of the CPPW CSI; provision of training, guidance, and technical assistance to the CPPW awardees; and collection and analysis of cost data of the CPPW initiative. Thomas Hoerger, PhD (919-541-7146), of RTI International serves as RTI’s Project Director. In this role, he is the primary contact with the Technical Monitor and oversees work on all project tasks.
The survey instrument, sampling and data collection procedures, and analysis plan were designed in collaboration with researchers at HHS, CDC, and RTI. The following personnel are involved in design of the protocol and data collection instrument:
(1) Donatus U. Ekwueme, PhD |
(2) Linda Bilheimer, PhD |
(3) Kathleen Koehler, PhD, MPH |
(4) Chunyu Li, PhD, MD |
(5) Amanda Honeycutt, PhD |
(6) Justin Trogdon, PhD |
(7) Olga Khavjou, MA |
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| File Type | application/msword |
| Author | DHHS |
| Last Modified By | DHHS |
| File Modified | 2010-11-04 |
| File Created | 2010-11-04 |