Supporting Statement

Underage Drinking Prevention’s “Talk. They Hear You.” Campaign Media Testing Survey

A. Product Activity to be Assessed

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, is requesting OMB approval for one new survey tool consisting of the following:

• Screener (Attachment A)

• Email invite and email reminder (attachment B)

• Survey (Attachment C)

In 2013, SAMHSA launched the “Talk. They Hear You.” Campaign designed to help parents talk to children ages 9–15 about the consequences of underage drinking and introduce skills to help them avoid situations that result in drinking. This is a national campaign with an ongoing rollout period.

The “Talk. They Hear You.” materials consist of public service announcements, infographics, and a mobile application. These materials show parents using everyday opportunities to talk with their children about alcohol, and reinforce the important of starting the conversation about alcohol at an early age. They were created and provided to partners to display and distribute to parents and community members, and these channels, in turn, generated feedback on campaign successes such as social media and blog posts, newsletter articles, and direct distribution of campaign materials.

The “Talk. They Hear You.” public service announcements include both print and video versions, with many materials available in both English and Spanish. Since launching in 2013, these public service announcements have been distributed to 1900 broadcast TV stations, 1000 cable TV stations, 3500 radio outlets, 300 print outlets, and 235 community-based outlets in the Washington, D.C. area. They have also earned more than 3.8 billion impressions as of June 17, 2015.

The “Talk. They Hear You.” infographics educated parents and the media on the facts about underage drinking in a visually compelling way. The infographics earned 561 likes, 1,238 shares, 34 favorites and 122 retweets via SAMHSA’s and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Facebook pages and Twitter profiles.

The “Talk. They Hear You.” mobile application features an interactive simulation that uses avatars to help parents practice bringing up the topic of alcohol, learn the questions to ask, and get ideas for keeping the conversation going. The application has a growing total of 2000+ downloads.

B. Brief Statement of Objectives

The overall objective of the survey is to identify key elements and phrases that parents will recognize as being part of the “Talk. They Hear You.” campaign in order to quantify parent awareness of the campaign, retention of campaign messages, and changes in behavior as a result of seeing the materials. Based on the ongoing rollout of the campaign, it is anticipated that by 2017 the target population will have had sufficient exposure to begin measuring the campaign’s impact on parent behavior in a national sample of parents.

C. Overview of Methods to Collect Information

Data Collection Method

This information will be gathered by conducting an online survey that will be emailed to participants using contact lists from organizations that have partnered with SAMHSA to advocate against underage drinking and related risky behaviors. If able to obtain city and state of each participant, the participants will be selected in the metropolitan statistical areas of the six focus cities of the campaign: Atlanta (GA), Los Angeles (CA), Manhasset (NY), Oklahoma City (OK), Phoenix (AZ), and Washington, D.C.

SAMHSA is seeking to conduct the surveys in these six geographic locations because they represent areas where rollout of the campaign has been more intensive to increase the probability of reaching respondents that have seen the materials. The different locations also ensure participants represent a wide range of populations from diverse socio-economic, cultural, educational, and demographic backgrounds. This diversity in participants’ backgrounds yields a comprehensive set of opinions, experiences, and feedback of the “Talk. They Hear You.” campaign materials and products.

Identifying respondents and providing incentives

SAMHSA is aiming for a total of 150 respondents who are parents of youth ages 9-15, and are most likely to have seen the “Talk. They Hear You.” campaign materials. Assuming a 12 percent response rate for electronic surveys, and that some percentage of respondents will be screened out because they no longer have children in the desired age range, SAMHSA will email out 1,500 survey invitations.

• The survey will be administered electronically via Qualtrics Survey Suite.

• Incentives will not be offered to respondents.

Frequency of data collection

SAMHSA is seeking to conduct the proposed survey only one time. Each respondent will be asked generally the same number of questions, with an equal amount of time to respond. Note that non-response follow-up will be administered at least three times during the field period; those who have not responded to the survey will be sent at least three reminders encouraging them to complete the survey.

Methods for Identifying Duplications

The information needed is specific to this program’s social marketing campaign and is not collected anywhere else.

D. Annualized Response Burden Estimate

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Responses per respondent	Total Number of Responses	Hours per Response	Total hour burden
Individuals (Screened)	1,500	1	1,500	.05 hours	75
Individuals (Complete survey)	150	1	150	.17 hours	25
Totals	1,500		1,650		100

The estimated annual cost to respondents for the proposed data collection activities is $875.00. For the purposes of estimating annual cost, it is assumed that the participants will participate once. The average burden was estimated based on independent review of the survey by the contractor and Federal staff.

Estimates of Annualized Cost to the Government

The estimated annual cost to the federal government for the proposed data collection activities is $12,000.

E. Methods used to develop the questions

The questions were developed to be similar to those used in surveys used to initially test effectiveness of the campaign materials.

F. Consultants within SAMHSA and outside the Agency

The common measures submitted here for OMB approval are the result of lengthy consultation and discussion among SAMHSA personnel, and contract representatives. The final selection of these measures was made by SAMHSA senior officials.

Project Officer

Robert Vincent, Public Health Advisor, SAMHSA

(240) 276-1582

Contractor/Project Director: Elaine Rahbar, Synergy Enterprises, Inc. (240) 485-1700

List of Attachments:

Attachment A: Screener

Attachment B: Email Invite and Email Reminder

Attachment C: Survey

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