Nonsubstantive Change Request - Reminder/Thank You Postcard

Nonsubstantive Change Request for the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation (FHWAR) Pre-Screener Test

OMB Control Number 0607-0974

On July 16, 2013, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) granted approval to conduct a three-panel pre-screener test for the National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation (FHWAR). The purpose of the test is to determine if household respondents will provide a household telephone number that reaches the sample address.

On September 11, 2013, the Census Bureau mailed the final mail packages to the sample addresses. At the time of this mailout, the overall response rate was approximately 20-percent. The table below shows the response rates as of the second mailout, the final mailout, and the response rate goal for the closeout of the mail operation.

Pre-Screener Response Rates as of the Second and Final Mailings
Date	Response Rate
August 28, 2013 (On Second Mailout)	12%
September 11, 2013 (On Third Mail Out)	20%
October 6, 2013 (Close-out for Mail Operation)	Goal is 25%

The final mailing is likely to increase the response rate by a few percentage points. However, in an effort to raise the response rate even further by closeout, we propose adding a Reminder/Thank you postcard mailed on or around September 18, 2013.

The purpose of the postcard is to thank household respondents who have already participated and to encourage those who have not yet participated, to do so. Increasing the response rate for this study is important to help us better understand if and how the pre-screener methodologies can be used in combination with other methods to improve the computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI) for the 2016 FHWAR. To put this in perspective, in a production environment, a 25-percent response rate could provide 25,000 household telephone numbers (for a sample size of 100,000 households) that reach our sample addresses. These phone numbers could help us to raise response in production at a relatively low cost.

The addition of the postcard is an inexpensive method that could potentially increase the response rate for the pre-screener test, and could help us determine if and how a postcard could be used in future production iterations. We plan to have Tamara Cole, the Survey Director, sign the postcard.

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