Justification for Change

Non-substantive Change Request

Title: Evaluating Locally-Developed HIV Prevention Interventions for African-American MSM in Los Angeles

OMB control number: 0920-0913

Expiration date: 1/31/2015

Rationale:

We are requesting a non-substantive change to the Participant Contact Information Form, the Baseline Questionnaire, and Participant Evaluation Forms (OMB #0920-0913).

The Participant Contact Information Form is used to collect extensive locator information from enrolled study participants. Collection of this information helps facilitate participant retention by allowing study staff to follow-up with participants on a regular basis and to remind them of upcoming sessions and assessments. In the months leading up to the three- and six-month follow-up assessments, staff attempt to check in with participants (both intervention and control participants) on a monthly basis to keep participants’ interest in the project high during this down time. The current Participant Information Form contains the following categories of information: name, address, phone numbers, email address, Facebook name, MySpace name, relative, friend, or partner name, phone numbers, and email address. We anticipate that several of our study participants will be experiencing homelessness and unstable housing. Thus, we are requesting to include additional items on the form to improve our ability to retain these transient and hard-to-reach participants (see added items in tracked changes). The additional items collect information on where staff may find homeless and hard-to-reach participants, including agencies where they frequently receive services. Collection of this data will assist study staff with following-up with these participants for their intervention sessions and follow-up assessments, which will help in reaching the goal of at least 75% retention of both the intervention and control arms. These additional questions will not have an effect on the current burden estimate.

We are also requesting minor changes to the Baseline Assessment based on feedback obtained during the piloting of this assessment and to the Client Satisfaction Surveys based on changes made to the intervention’s content. Most of the amendments are minor wording changes that improve the clarity of the question and/or the response options. We added a question to assess homelessness in the past 3 months to the Baseline Assessment. The changes to the Baseline Assessment and the Client Satisfaction Survey will not have an effect on their current burden estimates.