GenIC Clearance Submission_Alcohol and Pregnancy Message Testing_01-26-12 (2)

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0920-0919)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

Risk of Alcohol Use During Pregnancy: Message Testing and Materials Development

PURPOSE:

A series of focus groups will be conducted to test 8 adcepts and a brochure. The adcepts are targeted to one of three sets of audiences: women between the ages of 18 and 44 who are trying to get pregnant, women in the same age group who are pregnant, or a combination of both. The brochure is targeted to the combination of audiences.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

The respondents will be:

1. Women ages 18-44, who are trying to get pregnant at the time of contact

2. Women ages 18-44, who have had a baby in the prior year.

Table 1 presents the proposed audience segmentation scheme. We will conduct 2 focus groups for each combination of factors (or table cell) to reduce the possibility of having a unique group that may not be representative of that segment. For each of the cells, one of the groups will be in Baltimore, Maryland and the other in Atlanta, Georgia.

Table 1. Focus Group Segmentation (n = 8 focus groups)

Age group	Pregnancy Status
	Trying to get pregnant		Had a baby in the past year		Number of focus groups
18 – 30 yrs	1 group in Baltimore	1 group in Atlanta	1 group in Baltimore	1 group in Atlanta	4
31 – 44 yrs	1 group in Baltimore	1 group in Atlanta	1 group in Baltimore	1 group in Atlanta	4
TOTAL	2 in Baltimore / 2 in Atlanta		2 in Baltimore / 2 in Atlanta		8 GROUPS

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[X] Focus Group [ ] Other: ______________________

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name:_______Elizabeth Dang [email protected]____________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X ] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [X ] Yes [ ] No

It is proposed that respondents will be given $75 (for the 120 minute (2 hour) focus groups) for their participation, effort, transportation, and possible childcare costs. This amount is comparable to what has been the level of reimbursement for the target audiences in similar CDC funded activities. Women of childbearing age are often more difficult to recruit than more general audiences because they often have children and need to cover childcare costs to be able to attend the focus group session. Focus group facilities will not offer childcare services due to liability concerns, so the incentive needs to be enough to help the participants cover outside childcare costs if needed. It is assumed that the $75 incentive the women receive for participating in the groups would go toward the transportation costs for many of them to arrive at the facility, as well as the cost for off-site childcare to make it possible for them to attend. Every effort is being made to utilize a focus group facility that is located close to public transportation as well. As shown by the literature referenced below, the payment of incentives can provide significant advantages to the government in terms of direct cost savings and improved data quality.

There have been citations in the literature referencing the importance of monetary compensation for focus group participation. Krueger (1994) indicates that offering minimal levels of monetary compensation will help ensure that sufficient numbers of participants will attend thereby yielding useful results. Further, in a meta-analysis of 38 experiments and quasi-experiments, Church (1993) found that providing cash incentives for participation was far more effective than nonmonetary gifts in generating survey response, and prepaid monetary incentives yielded an average increase of 19.1 percentage points over comparison groups.  Finally, findings related to the importance of monetary incentives is corroborated in the National Adult Literacy Survey by Berlin (1992) and colleagues (OMB No. 1850-0654, exp. 8/31/1993), and the National Survey of Family Growth.

Offering a monetary incentive at the proposed level will help ensure that respondents honor their commitment of participating in the focus group. Lower incentives could actually result in higher recruiting costs due to the need to over recruit by higher percentages (Krueger & Casey, 2009). To avoid these risks, CDC requests OMB approval to remunerate participants at the rate of $75 per focus group session.

BURDEN HOURS

Screening Participants for Focus Groups

We estimated that screening of potential focus group participants takes 10 minutes per respondent for invited recruits and 5 minutes per respondent for terminated recruits. We estimate that for each recruited participant, 4 will be terminated. The total estimated response burden for focus group recruitment is 47 hours. We derived at these burden hours using the following calculations:

Each audience segment (“trying to get pregnant” and “had a baby in the past year”) will have 4 focus groups for a total of 8 focus groups. Therefore:

8 focus groups x 10 invited participants = 80 participants x 15 minutes = 1200 minutes/60 minutes = 20 hours for invited participants

8 focus groups x 40 terminated participants = 320 participants x 5 minutes = 1600 minutes/60 minutes = 27 hours for terminated participants

Focus Group Participation

The focus groups sessions are designed to last 2 hours, for a total of 120 minutes per participant. Thus, the estimated response burden anticipated for 80 focus group participants (assuming all 10 participants attend each focus group) is 160 hours for 8 focus groups.

Each audience segment (“trying to get pregnant” and “had a baby in the past year”) will have 4 focus groups for a total of 8 focus groups. Therefore:

8 focus groups X 10 invited participants = 80 participants x 120 minutes = 9600 minutes/60 minutes = 160 hours for invited participants

Estimated burden hours for all 8 focus groups (recruitment + focus group discussions) = 160 hours + 47 hours = 207 hours total burden for participants.

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Screening Participants for Focus Groups
Screener: Invited participants for all 8 focus groups	80	15/60 min	20 hours
Screener: Terminated participants for all 8 focus groups	320	5/60 min	27 hours
Participation in Focus Groups
Focus Group: Participants for all 8 focus groups	80	120/60 min	160 hours
Totals			207 hours

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is _$103,324__

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ ] Yes [X ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

Recruitment of Participants

AIR will contract with professional recruitment organizations in Atlanta and Baltimore: Atlanta Outloud and Observation Baltimore. AIR will develop the screener (attached), review the screener and related procedures with the firm, and provide them with a script for phone recruitment and a table format to report on progress weekly. Each focus group will include a target number of eight participants. We will over recruit by 25%, or 2 individuals per group. If all show up, all 10 will be included.

Selecting Participants: Screening criteria

The screener includes standard questions to collect demographic information (usually census based) and includes other tailored questions based on the additional inclusion and exclusion criteria for focus group participation. For example, aspects such as the following will be addressed using tailored questions and precise definitions to be developed:

• Pregnancy status

  • Inclusion: Women who have given birth in the prior 12 months and women trying to get pregnant at the time of contact. If it is not possible to recruit a sufficient number of women trying to get pregnant, the criterion will be relaxed to also include women planning to become pregnant in the following 12 months

  • Exclusion: Women unable to become pregnant or women who are pregnant

• Alcohol consumption

  • Exclusion: Women who have abstained from alcohol for the past 90 days (other than for religious reasons)

• Age

  • Inclusion: 18 to 44 years, assigned to one of two groups (18-30 years, 31-44 years)

  • Exclusion: All others

• Race/ethnicity

  • Inclusion: Each group will strive to have a mix of race/ethnicities including a balance of American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or White across the 8 groups.

  • Exclusions: none

• Education

  • Inclusion: Across groups, participants should include 5 to 8 who have less than a high school degree or GED (given that 12% to 37% fit these criteria, depending on racial ethnic group).

  • Exclusion: Has a master’s, doctoral or other postgraduate degree; those who cannot read and/or write.

• Income

  • Inclusion: Range of income within each group

  • Exclusion: None

• Other

  • Exclusions: Persons associated with or working in the health care industry, in marketing, or advertising.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[X ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X ] Yes [ ] No

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

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