Non-Substantive Change Request Justification

August 10, 2017

Change request for OMB # 0920-0792: Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net) Program

Justification/Brief Explanation for the Change Request

This is a nonmaterial/non-substantive change request for OMB approved generic information collection #0920-0792 Environmental Health Specialists Network (EHS-Net) Program (Expiration 9/30/2018). EHS-Net is funded through CDC cooperative agreement EH15-001.

The EHS-Net program, developed by CDC, conducts studies designed to identify and understand environmental factors associated with foodborne illness outbreaks and other food safety issues (e.g., ill workers). These data are essential to environmental public health regulators’ efforts to respond more effectively to and prevent future outbreaks and food safety-associated events.

We are requesting a change to increase the total number of respondents by 535 respondents (5,689 total) and the total burden hours by 158 hours (1,043 total) to be allowed under this information collection. We are planning a Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) clearance for a new genIC under the EHS-Net mechanism; this study will examine food safety beliefs and practices, which will include surveying food workers. The respondent universe for this data collection aligns with that specified for the EHS-Net generic information collection, that is, retail food establishments. The increase in respondents and burden hours is needed to ensure that we will have a sufficient sample size for later analysis. The proposed study is examining attributes that have not been studied with restaurant food workers. This study has the potential to provide information on underlying factors in restaurants that lead to employees failing to follow proper food safety practices, which in turn can be used to develop interventions in restaurants to reduce the occurrence of foodborne illness. Without the change, we would need to adjust our methodology and may lose statistical power. PRA clearance for this change request needs to be in place by 8/15/2017 to meet the timeline requirements for the future study. As such, we would appreciate your expedited consideration of this request.

We are not anticipating any additional projects under the current collection for the duration of the current PRA clearance. For future PRA extension of the EHS-Net generic, we will perform a comprehensive needs assessment of anticipated burden and new estimate of the annualized burden hours will be provided the next time this collection comes around for renewal.

	Currently Approved	Needed	Difference
Respondents	5,154	5,689	535
Burden Hours	885	1,043	158