FINAL_HCS_SSA_ATTACH 10_KI LETTER_Jan 2013

SSA ATTACHMENT 10

HEALTHY COMMUNITIES STUDY

Ms. Debra Plum

Orchard Drive

Your Community, ID 12345-6789

Dear Debra Plum,

We are following up on our recent telephone call inviting you to participate in The Healthy Communities Study: How Communities Shape Children’s Health. You were selected to be interviewed because you work in one of the 264 communities we are studying and you were identified as a Community Leader/Stakeholder and/or Director of a community program or policy related to children’s health behaviors. Nationally, approximately 3,200 community members will take part in this study and your participation is crucial to understanding your community’s activities and resources.

Your participation in an interview will take between one hour and one hour and thirty minutes. A member of our team has scheduled the following date and time with you for this in-person/ telephone interview:

DATE: DAY, DATE, MONTH, 20XX

TIME: XX:XX PM ET

LOCATION: IN PERSON LOCATION OR REMOTE FOLLOW-UP INFORMATION

Here is some background on this landmark study.

• The purpose of The Healthy Communities Study is to see what characteristics of programs and policies in communities across the United States help children lead healthy lives and to examine how these program and policy characteristics have changed over time.

• This study is being conducted by the Battelle Center for Analytics and Public Health and is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is the largest study of its kind ever funded.

• A member of our study team will speak with you in person or over the phone to conduct an interview. The interview will be about your community in general as well as your knowledge of and perceptions about various community level programs and policies related to children’s health behaviors.

• We also want to collect any documents you can provide to help us better understand these programs and policies.

Our study team will ensure your information stays private and secure. All study team members have completed trainings on keeping your information safe, and study laptops and equipment are password protected. Your information will be stored in a locked building with access limited to authorized study team members, and study data forms will only show your study identification number, not your name. Final study results will be published on groups only. No individual information will be included. No individual in this study will be able to be identified.

Your participation in this study is very important as the information you provide will contribute to our understanding of what characteristics of programs and policies may help improve children’s health in different types of communities. The findings of this study could help improve existing and future programs for children across the United States.

As a token of our appreciation for your participation, you will receive a gift worth $10 after the interview has been completed. .

Thank you for your commitment to helping your community and for your participation!

For questions about the study please contact: Dr. Howard Fishbein, Study Director,

Battelle Center for Analytics and Public Health at 703-248-1647.

Sincerely,

[Signature] [Signature]

S. Sonia Arteaga, Ph.D. Howard A. Fishbein, Dr. PH

Program Official Study Director

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Battelle Memorial Institute

National Institutes of Health

The Healthy Communities Study is sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, including primary funding by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, with additional support from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Disorders, and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the National Institutes of Health. Additional collaborators include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Research Partners for the study include the University of South Carolina; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Kansas.

NOTE: This master version of the key informant informational letter contains shaded wording indicating where sentences or phrases will differ as appropriate according to the type of interview that has been scheduled (in-person or remote).