Published 60 Day FRN

27063

Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 89 / Tuesday, May 8, 2012 / Notices

Type of collection

Average
number of
respondents
per activity

Annual
frequency per
response

Average
number of
activities

Average hours
per response

200

1

5

48/60

Online surveys, Telephone Surveys, Focus Groups, In person observation/
testing ...........................................................................................................

Kimberly S. Lane,

Proposed Project

Deputy Director, Office of Scientific Integrity,
Office of the Associate Director for Science,
Office of the Director, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.

The National Violent Death Reporting
System (NVDRS) OMB# 0920–0607
–Extension—National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control (NCIPC),
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC).

[FR Doc. 2012–11101 Filed 5–7–12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163–18–P

Background and Brief Description
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention
[60Day–12–0607]

Proposed Data Collections Submitted
for Public Comment and
Recommendations

srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES

In compliance with the requirement
of Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 for
opportunity for public comment on
proposed data collection projects, the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) will publish periodic
summaries of proposed projects. To
request more information on the
proposed projects or to obtain a copy of
the data collection plans and
instruments, call 404–639–7570 or send
comments to Kimberly Lane, at CDC,
1600 Clifton Road, MS–D74, Atlanta,
GA 30333 or send an email to
[email protected].
Comments are invited on: (a) Whether
the proposed collection of information
is necessary for the proper performance
of the functions of the agency, including
whether the information shall have
practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the
agency’s estimate of the burden of the
proposed collection of information; (c)
ways to enhance the quality, utility, and
clarity of the information to be
collected; and (d) ways to minimize the
burden of the collection of information
on respondents, including through the
use of automated collection techniques
or other forms of information
technology. Written comments should
be received within 60 days of this
notice.

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Violence is an important public
health problem. In the United States,
homicide and suicide are the second
and third leading causes of death,
respectively, in the 1–34 year old age
group. Unfortunately, public health
agencies do not know much more about
the problem than the numbers and the
sex, race, and age of the victims, all
information obtainable from the
standard death certificate. Death
certificates, however, carry no
information about key facts necessary
for prevention such as the relationship
of the victim and suspect and the
circumstances of the deaths, thereby
making it impossible to discern
anything but the gross contours of the
problem. Furthermore, death certificates
are typically available 20 months after
the completion of a single calendar year.
Official publications of national violent
death rates, e.g. those in Morbidity and
Mortality Weekly Report, rarely use data
that is less than two years old. Public
health interventions aimed at a moving
target last seen two years ago may well
miss the mark.
Local and Federal criminal justice
agencies such as the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) provide slightly more
information about homicides, but they
do not routinely collect standardized
data about suicides, which are in fact
much more common than homicides.
The FBI´s Supplemental Homicide
Report (SHRs) does collect basic
information about the victim-suspect
relationship and circumstances related
to the homicide. SHRs, do not link
violent deaths that are part of one
incident such as homicide-suicides. It
also is a voluntary system in which
some 10–20 percent of police
departments nationwide do not
participate. The FBI´s National Incident
Based Reporting System (NIBRS)

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provides slightly more information than
SHRs, but it covers less of the country
than SHRs. NIBRS also only provides
data regarding homicides. Also, the
Bureau of Justice Statistics Reports do
not use data that is less than two years
old.
CDC therefore proposes to continue a
state-based surveillance system for
violent deaths that will provide more
detailed and timely information. It taps
into the case records held by medical
examiners/coroners, police, and crime
labs. Data is collected centrally by each
state in the system, stripped of
identifiers, and then sent to the CDC.
Information is collected from these
records about the characteristics of the
victims and suspects, the circumstances
of the deaths, and the weapons
involved. States use standardized data
elements and software designed by CDC.
Ultimately, this information will guide
states in designing programs that reduce
multiple forms of violence.
Neither victim families nor suspects
are contacted to collect this information.
It all comes from existing records and is
collected by state health department
staff or their subcontractors. Health
departments incur an average of 2.5
hours per death in identifying the
deaths from death certificates,
contacting the police and medical
examiners to get copies of or to view the
relevant records, abstracting all the
records, various data processing tasks,
various administrative tasks, data
utilization, training, communications,
etc.
CDC requests an extension to
continue data collection with this
system in the 18 funded states, and
allow 9 new state health departments to
be added if funding becomes available.
This may bring the total to 27 by the
year 2015. Violent deaths include all
homicides, suicides, legal interventions,
deaths from undetermined causes, and
unintentional firearm deaths. The
average state will experience
approximately 1,000 such deaths each
year.
There is no cost to respondents to
participate other than their time.

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27064

Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 89 / Tuesday, May 8, 2012 / Notices
ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED BURDEN HOURS
Number of
respondents

Respondents

State Health Departments ...............................................................................
Public Agencies ...............................................................................................

Number of
responses/
respondent

27
27

1,000
1,000

Total ..........................................................................................................

Kimberly S. Lane,
Deputy Director, Office of Scientific Integrity,
Office of the Associate Director for Science,
Office of the Director, Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2012–11083 Filed 5–7–12; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4163–18–P

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND
HUMAN SERVICES
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention
[30 Day–12–0222]

Agency Forms Undergoing Paperwork
Reduction Act Review
The Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) publishes a list of
information collection requests under
review by the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) in compliance with the
Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C.
Chapter 35). To request a copy of these
requests, call (404) 639–7570 or send an
email to [email protected]. Send written
comments to CDC Desk Officer, Office of
Management and Budget, Washington,
DC or by fax to (202) 395–5806. Written
comments should be received within 30
days of this notice.
Proposed Project
NCHS Questionnaire Design Research
Laboratory (QDRL) 2012–2014, OMB
No. 0920–0222 expiration 3/31/2013)—
Revision—National Center for Health
Statistics (NCHS), Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC).

srobinson on DSK4SPTVN1PROD with NOTICES

Background and Brief Description
Section 306 of the Public Health
Service (PHS) Act (42 U.S.C. 242k), as
amended, authorizes that the Secretary
of Health and Human Services (DHHS),
acting through NCHS, shall undertake
and support (by grant or contract)
research, demonstrations, and
evaluations respecting new or improved
methods for obtaining current data to
support statistical and epidemiological
activities for the purpose of improving
the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality
of health services in the United States.

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2.5
30/60

Total burden
(in hours)
67,500
13,500
81,000

The Questionnaire Design Research
Laboratory (QDRL) conducts
questionnaire development, pre-testing,
and evaluation activities for CDC
surveys (such as the NCHS National
Health Interview Survey, OMB No.
0920–0214) and other federally
sponsored surveys. NCHS is requesting
3 years of OMB Clearance for this
generic submission.
The QDRL conducts cognitive
interviews, focus groups, usability tests,
field tests/pilot interviews, and
experimental research in laboratory and
field settings, both for applied
questionnaire development and
evaluation as well as more basic
research on response errors in surveys.
QDRL Staff use various techniques to
evaluate interviewer administered, selfadministered, telephone, Computer
Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI),
Computer Assisted Self-Interviewing
(CASI), Audio Computer-Assisted SelfInterviewing (ACASI), and web-based
questionnaires.
The most common questionnaire
evaluation method is the cognitive
interview. The interview structure
consists of respondents first answering
a draft survey question and then
providing textual information to reveal
the processes involved in answering the
test question. Specifically, cognitive
interview respondents are asked to
describe how and why they answered
the question as they did. Through the
interviewing process, various types of
question-response problems that would
not normally be identified in a
traditional survey interview, such as
interpretive errors and recall accuracy,
are uncovered. By conducting a
comparative analysis of cognitive
interviews, it is also possible to
determine whether particular
interpretive patterns occur within
particular sub-groups of the population.
Interviews are generally conducted in
small rounds of 20–30 interviews;
ideally, the questionnaire is re-worked
between rounds, and revisions are
tested iteratively until interviews yield
relatively few new insights.
In addition to its traditional QDRL
activities, NCHS is requesting approval

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Average
burden/
response
(in hours)

for a large field test that will be
conducted in 2012. This is a 5,000-case
test which involves testing the use of
ACASI in the full National Health
Interview Survey (NHIS). The ACASI
content included in the 5,000-case test
is consistent with the content studied in
two smaller approved tests. The module
includes questions on sexual identity,
alcohol consumption, HIV testing,
mental health, height and weight, sleep,
and financial worries. The objective of
asking a question on sexual identity in
the NHIS is to fill the gaps that exist in
the state of knowledge about the general
health behaviors, health status, and
health care utilization of Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT)
persons.
The 5,000-case test will include one
or more built-in experiments to assess
the impact of ACASI, and components
of ACASI, on prevalence estimates and
data quality. First and foremost, test
cases will be randomly assigned to
receive the above described questions in
either CAPI or ACASI. In particular,
prevalence estimates for the sexual
identity questions will be compared by
mode of administration. Since a
documented advantage of ACASI is the
enhanced level of privacy it affords, we
anticipate higher prevalence estimates
of sexual minorities (Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual or Transgender persons) from
this mode of administration. Estimates
for sensitive items on mental health,
alcohol consumption, HIV testing,
height and weight, financial worries,
and others will also be compared.
Cognitive interviewing is inexpensive
and provides useful data on
questionnaire performance while
minimizing respondent burden.
Cognitive interviewing offers a detailed
depiction of meanings and processes
used by respondents to answer
questions—processes that ultimately
produce the survey data. As such, the
method offers an insight that can
transform understanding of question
validity and response error.
Documented findings from these studies
represent tangible evidence of how the
question performs. Such documentation
also serves CDC data users, allowing

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