0235-niosh-12-SSB Reinstatement - July 20, 2012

Supporting Statement

CHILDHOOD INJURY AND

ADULT OCCUPATIONAL INJURY SURVEYS

OMB No. 0535-0235

B. COLLECTION OF INFORMATION EMPLOYING STATISTICAL METHODS:

1. Describe (including a numerical estimate) the potential respondent universe and any sampling or other respondent selection method to be used. Data on the number of entities (e.g., establishments, State and local government units, households, or persons) in the universe covered by the collection and in the corresponding sample are to be provided in tabular form for the universe as a whole and for each of the strata in the proposed sample. Indicate expected response rates for the collection as a whole. If the collection has been conducted previously, include the actual response rate achieved during the last collection.

Sampling units for this data collection will be drawn from the NASS list sampling frame of about 2 million farm and ranch operations. The target sample for the 2012 Childhood Injury and Adult Occupational Injury Survey questionnaire will be approximately 50,000 farm operators who will be drawn from all active records on the NASS list frame. The childhood farm injury questions will be asked of the entire 50,000 selected farm operations. From the 50,000 farm operators a sub-sample of 25,000 farms will be selected who will be asked to also complete the Adult Farm Injury portion of the questionnaire. These samples will represent the entire general farm population. The population will be divided among the four Bureau of Census’s major regional classifications: Northeast, Mid-west, South, and West. Then within each region a systematic sample is drawn targeting 12,500 in each of the 4 regions. A stratified sampling process is not needed because most of the injury statistics are based on positive responses from all operators within each region.

After the data collected during the 2012 Census of Agriculture (0535-0226) are captured to the NASS list frame, the sample for the 2014 Childhood Injury and Adult Occupational Injury Survey (Minority Version) questionnaire will be drawn from the total number of farm operators who classified themselves as a minority and/or Hispanic. On the 2007 Census of Agriculture, nearly 80,000 farm operators classified themselves as a minority and/or Hispanic. NASS is using the race and ethnicity classifications that appear on the U.S. Population Census. Anyone who identified themselves as Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, or Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander will have the potential to be included in the target population. A sample size of approximately 50,000 farm operators will be selected nationwide by simple random sampling from the target population. The samples will be divided equally among the four, Bureau of the Census’ major regional classifications: Northeast, Mid-west, South, and West. The childhood farm injury questions will be asked of the entire 50,000 selected minority farm operations. From the 50,000 minority farm operators a sub-sample of 25,000 farms will be selected who will be asked to also complete the Adult Farm Injury portion of the questionnaire. Data for both surveys will be collected by telephone at the same time. NASS will be utilizing one questionnaire for both surveys. The potential does exist that some minority farmers will be selected for both the 2012 and the 2014 surveys.  The 2012 survey represents the entire farming population, therefore we cannot exclude the minority farmers from this sample.  The 2014 survey is drawn exclusively from minority farmers, since the surveys are referencing two different years, there is no duplication of data. 

In general the sample size for all NIOSH studies are influenced by the fact that agricultural injuries are rare occurrences on farm operations across the country. While this is preferable from a farm safety perspective, it makes it necessary for large sample sizes to be drawn in order to find operations that had injuries. Therefore, it is not feasible to sub-sample minority farm operators at a lower rate when collecting data on the general farm population studies. It is better to either collect data from the general farm population or to sample the minority farm operators exclusively.

NIOSH staff analyzed their historical data series to determine how frequently the injuries have occurred over time and NASS uses this information to determine the optimum sample size for a study.

The adjusted response rate is expected to be approximately 80 percent for these surveys. Following the previous submission of this OMB docket, NIOSH received a request from OMB, asking for two additional methods of calculating the response rate. In the following table we have included the Crude Response Rate, the OMB Response Rate and the Adjusted Response Rate.

Year	Completes (C)	Out of business (OB)	Contact Refusal (CR)	Not Contacted (NC)	Total (T)	Crude Response1	OMB Response2	Adjusted Response3
2001 Race & Hispanic4	23,196	3,974	9,254	12,846	49,270	55.1%	53.4%	74.6%
2002 Child & Adult5	26,424	4,320	8,600	10,656	50,000	61.5%	59.8%	78.1%
2004 Race Child & Adult6	18,663	1,385	4,484	6,780	31,312	64.0%	63.4%	81.7%
2004 Child & Adult7	12,084	795	3,514	4,770	21,163	60.9%	60.2%	78.6%
2005 Child & Adult5	29,564	3,229	8,092	9,115	50,000	65.6%	64.4%	80.2%
2007 Child	27,277	2,853	8,462	9,659	48,251	62.4%	61.3%	78.1%
2009 Race Child & Adult6	20,874	1,257	3,333	15,075	40,539	54.6%	54.3%	86.9%
2009 Hispanic Child & Adult7	11,933	501	1,915	6,844	21,193	58.7%	58.5%	86.7%
2010 Child	25,749	2,553	5,373	16,325	50,000	56.5%	56.0%	84.0%
2010 Adult	12,796	1,287	2,803	8,063	24,949	56.5%	55.8%	83.4%
1. Crude Response = (C + OB)/T X 100
2. OMB Response = C/(T- OB -(NC x OB/(C + OB))) X 100
3. Adjusted Response = (C + OB)/(T - NC) X 100
4. Race and Hispanic response rates could not be calculated separately.
5. Child and Adult response rates could not be calculated separately. 6. Child and Adult Race response rates could not be calculated separately. 7. Child and Adult Hispanic response rates could not be calculated separately.

2. Describe the procedures for the collection of information.

For the 2012 Childhood Injury and Adult Occupational Injury Survey, respondents will be sent an advance letter and brochure explaining the purpose of the survey and information on the type of data being collected. The actual questionnaire is not mailed out to the respondents prior to the data collection phase, only the publicity materials. Telephone interviewing will begin in August for the preceding year (reference data collection period). If the respondent is not available at the first contact attempt, additional telephone calls will be made at various times, during the day and evening hours, and on different days of the week for the two month data collection period. Each respondent will be attempted at least 10 times during the data collection period in an attempt to increase our response rates. The subject will be asked if she/he is willing to participate. If the respondent indicates that the time is not convenient a call back time will be arranged. As the interview begins, the subject will be reminded that, although complete cooperation is important to the success of the project, she/he may refuse to answer any specific questions and may terminate her/his participation at any time.

The 2014 Childhood Injury and Adult Occupational Injury Survey of minority farm operators will follow the same survey procedures that were previously described for the 2012 survey. However, telephone interviewing for this survey will begin in August of 2014.

3. Describe methods to maximize response rates and to deal with issues of non-response. The accuracy and reliability of information collected must be shown to be adequate for intended uses. For collections based on sampling a special justification must be provided for any collection that will not yield "reliable" data that can be generalized to the universe studied.

The NASS Data Collection Centers (DCC’s) have been optimized to collect data in the most efficient manner possible. Special training will be provided to the statisticians in the DCC’s for this survey. They will in turn, provide survey specific training to all of the NASDA enumerators that will be conducting this survey by telephone. The enumerators will be able to ask questions in a consistent and professional manner, as well as answer any questions that respondents may have about the survey and why this data is important to them.

NASS’s Public Affairs Section will work closely with NIOSH to improve the pre-survey letters and brochures that are mailed to each potential respondent informing them of the purpose of the survey and highlighting results from the previous study. Calling centers have implemented special caller-identification information so that contacts can distinguish NASS calls from other, unknown, telephone solicitors. Hopefully, this will reduce the incidences where individuals will not answer the telephone because they cannot identify the caller. Also, in preparation for the 2012 Census of Agriculture, NASS has performed extensive list improvement efforts (including a special focus on identifying minority owned farms),which should improve the quality of the sample and reduce non-response due to disconnected telephones, incorrect telephone numbers, or name and address errors.

The possibility of non-response bias will exist because of telephone non-response.  Budget constraints will not allow for field interview follow-up of these non-respondents.  Therefore, adjustments for coverage and non-response will be made by calibrating the weights of the responding records of the survey to adjust to the characteristics based on the current data on the ELMO list frame by age, gender, and geographic area. No adjustments to the 2012 data will be made based on race or ethnicity.

With the anticipated response rate, the resulting summary data will provide reliable and useable estimates of childhood agricultural injuries and adult occupational farm injuries. Information on children injured on farms, while visiting a farm should be sufficient to estimate the frequency of such injuries but may be limited in providing estimates related to the circumstances of these injuries, especially at the regional level.

4. Describe any tests of procedures or methods to be undertaken.

The procedures and methods used for this survey are similar to other probability surveys conducted by NASS. The Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI) instrument that will be used for data collection will be pre-tested by our NASDA enumerators as a part of their training regiment, prior to beginning data collection. The Data Collection Centers (DCC’s) will conduct tests on the processing systems that will be used during the live data collection period, prior to the beginning of the survey. The DCC’s and NASS headquarters will use the test data that the NASDA enumerators created during their training to test the check-in, data validation, electronic edit, and summary instruments.

5. Provide the name and telephone number of individuals consulted on statistical aspects of the design and the name of the agency unit, contractor(s), grantee(s), or other person(s) who will actually collect and/or analyze the information for the agency.

NASS and NIOSH will work collaboratively on survey design and data collection. Statisticians in each of the 45 NASS field offices will review the State level samples and designate a project contact for the State. NASS will collect the data utilizing its network of DCC’s and NASDA enumerators located in 6 states, with good geographic dispersion. NIOSH will be responsible for analysis and dissemination of the data. The NASS Program Administration Branch and Sampling Branch will provide consultation on matters concerning quality control, sampling estimates, and sampling errors.

The sampling plan was developed by the Sample Design Section of the Sampling Branch, Census and Survey Division; Branch Chief is Bill Iwig, (202)720-3895.

The administration of the survey will be conducted by Robert Harris in the Commodity Survey’s Section (202) 690-3622. The Programs Administration Branch Chief is Christina Messer (202) 690-8747.

May, 2012

Revised July, 2012