Justification for Change

CDC and ATSDR Health Message Testing System (OMB No. 0920-0572)

We would like to submit a request for change to the generic clearance, OMB No. 0920-0572, CDC and ATSDR Health Message Testing System (HMTS).

This request is for additional burden hours through the end of the current approval period on November 30, 2011. Specifically the request is for 3,000 additional burden hours to meet requests from CDC and ATSDR programs for use of the HMTS during the remainder of this period.

Justification for the Additional Burden Hours

The HMTS was originally approved with 9,000 burden hours for the three-year period from November 2008 through November 2011. In 2009 there were 13 requests to use this system with an average of 159.1 burden hours per request for a total of 2,068 hours. In 2010 interest in use of this system increased with 22 requests with an average of 178.9 burden hours per request for a total of 3,935 hours. In the first three months of 2011 there were 10 requests with an average of 272.9 hours for a total of 2,729 hours. At this point only 268 burden hours remain available.

In part, this increased use reflects growing awareness of the HMTS, in particular by small projects that could benefit from the availability of this shared resource. The increased use is also due to the fact that the HMTS was created prior to and without anticipation of numerous new activities stemming from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). These high priority and high profile pieces of legislation have created the need to develop new materials for the media initiative and to quickly test health messages among target populations prior to implementation of activities funded under these bills.

The increase in the number of burden hours is being requested to accommodate increased use in general, and to accommodate new ACA- and ARRA-related demand for testing the clarity, salience, appeal and persuasiveness of health messages. It is estimated that there may be 15 to 20 requests for HMTS use between now through the end of November and these could be accommodated with 3,000 hours with requests averaging 150 to 200 burden hours.