Response to OMB commennts

interoffice memorandum

to: Shelly Wilkie Martinez

from: Ted socha

Through: kashka Kubzdela

subject: Response to 6/3/11 and 6/17/11 OMB Passback on B&B:08/12 Field test 2011 Package

date: June 24, 2011

Passback of June 3, 2011

1. When might we receive a revised incentive plan based on our call of 5/19?  We would like to get this soon since we anticipate that this will be the last remaining issue to resolve with the package.

We are providing a revised Part A and a memo with the additional analysis and discussion today (6/7/2011).  If there are no further questions about the analysis, we will incorporate the material from the memo into a revised Part B.

2. The SS A 1says that the survey instruments in this package are still draft by that finalized versions will be provided by March 31, 2011.  Are the “draft” or the “finalized” questionnaires those that were submitted to OMB?

They are final.  This statement has been removed from the attached Supporting Statement Part A.

3. Please eliminate the reference to CIPSEA in A10.  If you remove the confidentiality pledge part, you’ve essentially gutted the main purpose of the portion of the statute that pertains to confidentiality, so there isn’t really a reason to include it.

The statement has been removed from the attached Supporting Statement Part A.

4. Can you clarify MPR’s role in B&B?  Is this a new role?

The MPR’s role on B&B:08/12 is similar to their role in the previous two waves of the study.  As RTI’s principal subcontractor, MPR primary has responsibility for data elements identification, derived variables, descriptive analyses, and reporting.

Passback of June 17, 2011

5. First, this additional analysis is helpful and we appreciate it.  However, we has asked that part of that analysis included crossing the group in Table 12 of the SS Part B with the high, medium and low categories to address our question of whether the model was really doing anything other than placing the double nonrespondents in the low category.  Please provide.

This information has been provided in tables 14 and 15 of the attached Supporting Statement Part B.

6. Second, given that Rti didn’t come up with any other design with additional power (although we really aren’t sure what alternatives were examined since the memo is quite vague on this point), we really want to insist that the experiment collapse from three categories to two as part of the design.  It makes a lot more sense to us than separating them now and then combining the low and medium for analysis as is now the plan.  How best to combine can be informed by the request in the first item.

The distribution of propensity scores is presented in figure 2 of the attached Supporting Statement Part B. The sample has been divided into two groups: those with a predicted propensity score below .885 are classified as low propensity and the remaining cases are classified as high propensity.

7. Third, please provide the detailed table that goes behind the summary table 2 in the memo.  We are having a little trouble interpreting it without additional context.

This information has been provided in tables 18 through 20 of the attached Supporting Statement Part B.

8. Please integrate the memo into part b so we can really understand the full soup to nuts.  There are some missing pieces or questions having them separate.

The memo has been integrated into the attached Supporting Statement Part B.