Justification for Change

Request for Approval of a Non-Substantive Change:

Customer Surveys Generic Clearance

for the

National Center for Health Statistics

OMB No. 0920-0729

(expires May 31, 2017)

Contact Information

Verita Custis Buie, Dr.P.H.

Office of Planning, Budget, and Legislation

National Center for Health Statistics

3311 Toledo Road, Room 7107

Hyattsville, MD 20782

301-458-4582

[email protected]

October 5, 2016

Customer Surveys Generic Clearance for the National Center for Health Statistics

1. Circumstances Making the Collection of Information Necessary

This request is for a nonsubstantive change to an approved data collection (OMB No. 0920-0729, expires 05/31/2017), Customer Surveys Generic Clearance for the National Center for Health Statistics. On May 14, 2014, this generic package was approved for a total of 2,040 burden hours. In anticipation of additional overall customer surveys that would exceed the number of currently approved burden hours, this change request is submitted to increase the total number of approved burden hours from 2,040 to 2,440.

2. Purpose and Use of the Information

NCHS places the highest priority on providing quality products and services to our customers. We will continue to use the results of all of our customer surveys to identify strengths and weaknesses in those current products and services and to refine and improve them by implementing modifications that are practical and feasible. Information obtained in these surveys will guide NCHS management in program planning.

To date, NCHS has utilized the customer survey generic clearance to conduct a number of activities to assess progress toward meeting its Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) objective to "measure satisfaction of key data users and policymakers."   Surveys are conducted among 1) "reimbursable collaborators"-- agencies, mostly governmental, which funded components of NCHS surveys; 2) Conference attendees--through both focus groups during the conferences and email surveys of attendees following the meetings; 3) Federal "power users" of NCHS data--agencies that use NCHS data for analysis, policy, and other purposes; and 4) users of the NCHS web site--both through "usability testing" at the NCHS Conferences and through other internet-based surveys.  As a result of these customer survey activities, NCHS is able to obtain "actionable" information to improve products and services, and NCHS is able to effectively meet its PART objective to measure customer satisfaction.

12. Estimates of Annualized Burden Hours and Costs

In anticipation of increased Web-based surveys it is estimated that the total number of burden hours will increase from 750 to 1000, increasing the corresponding number of estimated respondents from 4,500 to 6,000. Likewise, the number of other customer surveys are expected to increase the burden from 300 to 450 hours and the number of respondents from 1,200 to 1,800. No other changes to the burden captured by the conference registrants/attendees or focus groups are anticipated. The total burden for the Customer Surveys Generic Clearance will now equal 2,440 hours (12,540 respondents) compared to the 2,040 hours (10,440 respondents) captured in the most recently approved package.

Table 1. Estimates of Annualized Burden Hours for NCHS Customer Surveys

Type of survey	Number of Respondents	Number of responses/ respondent	Average Burden/ response (in hours)	Response Burden (in hours)
Questionnaire for conference registrants/attendees	4,500	1	10/60	750
Focus groups	240	1	1	240
Web-based	6000	1	10/60	1000
Other customer surveys	1,800	1	15/60	450
Total	12,540	.........	........	2,440

15. Explanation for Program Changes or Adjustments

In anticipation of additional overall customer surveys that would exceed the number of currently approved burden hours, this change request is submitted to increase the total number of approved burden hours from 2,040 to 2,440. This includes an increase in the number of web-based burden hours from 750 to 1,000 and the number of other customer surveys from 300 to 450 hours.