Generic Clearance Request

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 2127-0682)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Focus Groups for Assessments of Messaging Taglines and Concepts Supporting a National Awareness Campaign to Reduce Drowsy Driving

PURPOSE:

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) was authorized by the Highway Safety Act of 1966 to carry out a Congressional mandate to reduce the mounting number of deaths, injuries and economic losses resulting from motor vehicle crashes on our Nation’s highways. In support of this mission, NHTSA is developing a new communications campaign to be implemented as early as July 2016 to raise drivers’ awareness of the risks and dangers of driving without sufficient sleep or rest. In 2014 there were 846 fatalities (2.6% of all fatalities) recorded in NHTSA’s FARS database that were drowsy-driving-related. These reported fatalities (and drowsy-driving crashes overall) have remained largely consistent across the past decade. Between 2005 and 2009 there was an estimated average of 83,000 crashes each year related to drowsy driving. This annual average includes almost 886 fatal crashes (2.5% of all fatal crashes), an estimated 37,000 injury crashes, and an estimated 45,000 property damage only crashes. (http://www.nhtsa.gov/Driving+Safety/Drowsy+Driving) However, a variety of research approaches and data indicate that traditional measures of drowsy driving may significantly underestimate the prevalence of the issue. Researchers have inferred the existence of additional drowsy-driving crashes by looking for correlations with related factors such as the number of passengers in the vehicle, crash time and day of week, driver sex and crash type. One such study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety analyzed data from NHTSA’s National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) Crashworthiness Data System (CDS). By using a multiple imputation methodology they estimated 7 percent of all crashes and 16.5 percent of fatal crashes involved drowsy driving. If this estimate is accurate, it suggests that more than 5,000 people died in drowsy-driving-related motor vehicle crashes across the United States last year. (http://www.nhtsa.gov/Driving+Safety/Drowsy+Driving) A 19-state study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 4.2% of drivers had reported having fallen asleep while driving at least once during the previous 30 days. (CDC. Drowsy driving --- 19 states and the District of Columbia, 2009-2010. MMWR 2013;61:1033-7)

Integral parts of NHTSA’s campaign are development of a messaging tagline and creative concept to assist states in efforts to increase and sustain awareness of the risks and dangers of driving while drowsy. For assessment of the relative strengths and weaknesses of tagline and concept alternatives, NHTSA seeks to use a qualitative research methodology in the form of focus groups. For NHTSA campaigns in the past, focus groups have provided an important means of gathering tagline feedback because they allow for a more in-depth understanding of drivers’ attitudes, beliefs, motivations, and feelings than do quantitative studies. Focus groups serve the narrowly defined need for direct and informal opinion on a specific topic.

NHTSA proposes conducting a total of eight focus groups among two at-risk categories of drivers (i.e., four focus groups per category):

• College students, ages 18-24

• Third-shift workers, ages 25-54

The groups will be conducted in four cities:

• Birmingham, AL

• Houston, TX

• Kansas City, MO

• Seattle, WA

NHTSA believes the geographical and attitudinal diversities of these four communities will yield a full picture of which messaging and communications elements will be most effective for national use. Furthermore, each city has sufficient bases of university students and employees (such as factories, healthcare organizations, etc.) who work nighttime shifts.

Focus groups will play an important role in gathering this information because they allow for more in-depth understanding of people’s attitudes, beliefs, and motivations than do other kinds of studies. If such information is not collected, it will be more difficult and less cost-effective for NHTSA to develop and distribute potentially life-saving messages to its target audience. 

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

Focus group respondents will correspond to NHTSA’s target audiences for the messaging campaign: (1) drivers ages 18-24 who are college students; and (2) drivers ages 25-54 who work mostly late-night/early-morning shifts for their employers. For both of those categories, recruiting efforts will be made to find participants who self-report that they sleep (on average) fewer than seven hours per day five or more days per week. A total of eight groups will be conducted, four groups for each of the two categories. Each group will be composed of seven to nine pre-screened individuals. Each group is projected to last 90 minutes in duration. (This total time is a combination of an “arrive early” window of 15 minutes plus 75-minute focus group session). Although no more than nine participants will be seated for each group, more than nine per group will be recruited. Given the target market profile for this effort, thirteen people will be recruited for each group in anticipation of at least nine showing. Even with advance confirmations from qualified recruits, the relative reliability of some people in each category to not show for focus groups necessitates the higher number of recruits. Should more than nine arrive on time, only nine will be seated in the group, and the others will be released (as well as paid their promised incentives). As noted in the previous section, for the eight groups, four cities will be used, with two groups per city. Each proposed city is relatively major in size and has marketing research industry-accredited focus group facilities available:

• Birmingham, AL

• Houston, TX

• Kansas City, MO

• Seattle, WA

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[X] Focus Group [ ] Other: ____________________

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name:___Susan McMeen __________________________________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X] No

2. If Yes, will any information that is collected be included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Yes, has an up-to-date System of Records Notice (SORN) been published? [ ] Yes [ ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ X] Yes [ ] No

Each respondent will be provided with $75 following her/his participation in a focus group session. This amount is in line with the industry standard, relative to focus group participation by people in the target market. These industry-standard stipends help to ensure that respondents can be recruited efficiently and ensure their arrival and participation in the groups. These standards exist to provide fair compensation for costs incurred by participants while attending groups, based on the location of and expenses in each market. As noted earlier, pre-screened and invited respondents who arrive on time but are released prior to the group will also be awarded their stipends (also in keeping with marketing research industry standards).

BURDEN HOURS

No. of Respondents	No. of Responses per Respondent	Average Burden per Response (hours)	Total Burden Hours
104 (recruits for screening purposes)	1	6 minutes (1/10-hours) phone interview	11
72 (participants)	1	90 minutes (1-and-1/2-hours) pre-group arrival plus discussion	108
32 (recruits arriving, but released prior to participation)	1	15 minutes (1/4-hours) pre-group arrival only, subsequently released	8
			127 hours

TOTAL BURDEN HOURS: 127 hours

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $78,000.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ X] Yes [ ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

Please see recruitment screeners (two versions) attached.

Each focus group facility in each city does the recruiting on NHTSA’s and NHTSA’s contractor’s behalf, per the screeners NHTSA provides.  The facility’s recruiting staff works primarily from a pool within its proprietary database of people in that particular marketplace who have previously submitted demographic, lifestyle and product preference information.  So when NHTSA submits screeners such as the two for this project, the recruitment manager will filter the database to search for potential respondents in the designated age group (and any other relevant specs if the firm happens to have one or more of those other criteria established in the database).  Then the recruiters will use telephone calls to those potential respondents to administer the full screener.

 

In any given household, only one person will be screened and confirmed.

 

After going through the database, if the recruiters can't fill the specified total numbers and/or quotas, the secondary step is procuring sample from any of numerous national sample providers of names, addresses and phone numbers.  The recruiters will then make phone calls to this list until the recruiting is completed.

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X ] Yes [ ] No

Please make sure that all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

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