OSTLTS Generic Data collection Request
OMB No. 0920-0879
Submitted: May 1, 2018
Program Official/Project Officer
Laura A. Cathcart, Ph.D.
Training Specialist
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd. MS-D29, Atlanta GA 30329
Office: 404-718-1407
Fax: 404-639-2847
Section B – Data collection Procedures 3
1. Respondent Universe and Sampling Methods 3
2. Procedures for the Collection of Information 3
3. Methods to Maximize Response Rates Deal with Nonresponse 7
4. Test of Procedures or Methods to be Undertaken 7
5. Individuals Consulted on Statistical Aspects and Individuals Collecting and/or Analyzing Data 8
We plan to collect data from a total of 1057 MCM officials representing state, territorial, and local agencies (see Attachment B – Sample of MCM Officials Table and Attachment C – Respondent Universe). Attachment B is a high level summary of the sample groups (see Attachment B – Sample of MCM Officials Table). Attachment C describes the sample groups by number of respondents, as well as STLT type, size, and location. It also lists the specific local health departments in the sample by state and size (see Attachment C – Respondent Universe).
Description of the Sample:
As outlined in the attachment (see Attachment B – Sample of MCM Officials Table), 62 of the respondents are supported by the PHEP cooperative agreement. The remaining 995 are local health department contacts of NACCHO. These 995 were specifically identified to participate in this project. The context that supports this decision is as follows: each year, NACCHO distributes an assessment (preparedness profile) to a stratified random sample of LHDs (based on health department size: small, medium, or large). The 995 reflect those who were not invited to participate in the survey in September of 2017, with the exception of the 118 from large health departments as NACCHO routinely samples from this entire population on surveys. In an effort to reduce the burden on NACCHO’s contacts, CDC is choosing to invite those 995 who did not participate in the preparedness profile.
Sample by Instrument:
Electronic Assessment
A total of 1057 respondents will be invited to participate in the electronic assessment. Respondents will consist of 995 contacts provided by NACCHO and 62 PHEP awardees.
Virtual Group Interviews
The goal is to obtain 60 participants for the virtual group interviews. To obtain this sample, all respondents of the electronic assessment will be asked if they are willing to participate in the virtual group interview by completing a brief sign-up form (see Attachment F – Virtual Group Interview Sign-up, Word Version and Attachment G – Virtual Group Interview Sign Up, Web Version Screenshots). Of those who indicate their willingness, NACCHO will hand-select 60 participants, identifying a mix of respondents representing small, medium, and large local health departments not supported by PHEP and state, territorial, and city health departments supported by PHEP.
A description of each data collection instrument is provided below.
Electronic Training Needs Assessment
Electronic assessment data will be collected via a web-based information collection instrument (see Attachment D –Training Needs Electronic Assessment, Word Version and Attachment E - Training Needs Electronic Assessment, Web Version Screenshots), programmed using Qualtrics, allowing respondents to complete and submit their responses electronically. Respondents for the electronic assessment will be recruited through notification emails and announcements (see Attachments J – Electronic Assessment Invitation Email, Attachment K – MCM Training Needs Assessment Advertisement, Attachment L – Electronic Assessment Reminder 1 Email, and Attachment M – Electronic Assessment Reminder 2 Email) to the respondent universe. The notification emails and announcements will explain:
The purpose of the data collection, and why their participation is important
Instructions for participating
Method to safeguard their responses
That participation is voluntary
The expected time to complete the instrument
Contact information for the project team
Respondents will be given a total of four weeks to complete the electronic assessment. At the beginning of week one, NACCHO will send a notification email (see Attachment J – Electronic Assessment Invitation Email) to all 1,057 MCM Officials to launch the needs assessment. The email’s language will state the purpose of the data collection, explain the procedures, and provide a link to the electronic data collection instrument. The respondents will have until the end of week four to complete the assessment.
During the first four weeks following OMB approval, DSLR will also post an announcement advertising the needs assessment to MCM Officials supported by the PHEP cooperative agreement in the DSLR Friday Update and monthly newsletter (see Attachment K – MCM Training Needs Assessment Advertisement) that will state the purpose of the data collection, explain the procedures, and inform readers of the notification emails.
At the beginning of week two, NACCHO will send a reminder email to all 1,057 MCM Officials (see Attachment L – Electronic Assessment Reminder 1 Email). The reminder email’s language will review the purpose of the data collection, explain the procedures, and provide the link to the electronic data collection instrument.
NACCHO will send additional reminder emails to the MCM Officials who have not completed the electronic assessment at the beginning of week three and again at the beginning of week four (see Attachment M – Electronic Assessment Reminder 2 Email). Based on the initial email list, Qualtrics monitors the email distribution, assessments started, and finished. From the email monitoring tool in Qualtrics, NACCHO is able to send a reminder email to those who have not yet started or finished the assessment. The email monitoring tool is not linked to response data. Each reminder email’s language will review the purpose of the data collection, explain the procedures, and provide the link to the electronic data collection instrument. Participants who do not respond by the end of week four will be considered non-responders.
At the beginning of week 3, NACCHO will start making reminder phone calls to the MCM Officials who have not yet completed the electronic assessment (see Attachment N– Reminder Phone Call Script). The Qualtrics email monitoring tool provides a list of not only the email addresses for the respondents who have not completed the assessment, but also their names. Phone numbers for these names will be obtained from NACCHO’s Preparedness Contact’s list and the list of PHEP MCM Official’s contact information. Each MCM Official who has not completed the assessment will be contacted by phone once. In cases where the MCM Official is not available or does not answer the phone call, the script will be read to their voicemail. The phone calls will answer respondent questions and explain:
The purpose of the data collection, and why their participation is important
Instructions for participating
Method to safeguard their responses
That participation is voluntary
The expected time to complete the instrument
Contact information for the project team
Virtual Group Interview Discussions
Recruitment for the group interview discussions will occur on the final screen of the training needs electronic assessment (see Attachment D- Training Needs Electronic Assessment, Word Version and Attachment E- Training Needs Electronic Assessment, Web Version Screenshots). The final screen will display a message about the virtual group interview with a separate link to the virtual group interview sign-up form (see Attachment G- Virtual Group Interview Sign-up, Word Version and Attachment H- Virtual Group Interview Sign-up, Web Version Screenshots). The message displayed will explain: the purpose of the data collection, and why their participation is important, instructions for participating, method to safeguard their response, that their participation is voluntary, the expected time to complete the instrument, and contact information for the project team. The sign-up form collects participants’ name, email address, health department, which group interview discussion they volunteer to participate in, and their consent to be recorded during the group interview discussion.
Respondents will be given a total of four weeks to sign-up for a group interview discussion. Participants who do not respond by the end of week four will be considered non-responders.
Respondents who completed the sign-up form (see Attachment F – Virtual Group Interview Sign-up, Word Version and Attachment G – Virtual Group Interview Sign-up, Web Version Screenshots) for the group interview discussions will be recruited for specific group interview discussions through notification emails (see Attachment O – Group Interview Notification Email, and Attachment P – Group Interview Reminder Email) to a total of 60 individuals from the respondent universe. The emails will explain:
The purpose of the data collection, and why their participation is important
Instructions for participating
Method to safeguard their responses
That participation is voluntary
The expected time for group interview discussions
Contact information for the project team
At the beginning of week 5 following OMB approval, NACCHO will send notification emails to a total of 60 respondents who completed the sign-up form (see Attachment O – Group Interview Notification Email). The breakdown of these 60 respondents is as follows: (1) 15 from small LHDs; (2) 15 from medium LHDs; (3) 15 from large LHDs; and (4) 15 from health departments supported by the PHEP cooperative agreement. These emails will confirm that the respondent will be participating in a group interview discussion and contain instructions for joining the virtual group interview. Additionally, two business days before each group interview discussion, NACCHO will send a reminder email to its participants (see Attachment P – Group Interview Reminder Email).
During weeks 5 and 6 following OMB approval, NACCHO will conduct four group interview discussions via Adobe Connect web conferencing software (see Attachment H – Virtual Group Interview Discussion Guide, Word Version and Attachment I – Virtual Group Interview Discussion Guide, Web Version Screenshots). Participants will be able to join the discussion through their phones or audio on their personal computers while following along with a visual presentation. The facilitator will display the questions on the screen and lead the discussion via audio. The group interviews will consist of the following respondent groups:
Group interview 1: MCM officials from small LHDs
Group interview 2: MCM officials from medium LHDs
Group interview 3: MCM officials from large LHDs
Group interview 4: MCM officials from health departments supported by the PHEP cooperative agreement
The electronic assessment data will be collected and stored within NACCHO’s password-protected Qualtrics account and will be downloaded into Microsoft Excel on the password-protected computers of the NACCHO preparedness team. The Microsoft Excel data will be stored on secure NACCHO server, with access given only to NACCHO staff. The focus groups will be recorded by NACCHO, who will store the recordings on a password-protected system and send them to a transcription service contractor. NACCHO will also take detailed notes during focus groups, which will be stored on their password-protected computers and secure NACCHO server. NACCHO will receive the focus group transcriptions back from the transcription service and will remove any PII, such as participant names and the names of specific health departments. The de-identified Microsoft Excel data and focus group documents will be shared with the DSLR Applied Learning and Development Team (ALDT) via secure email. The DSLR ALDT will download all documents to their personal password-protected CDC-issued computers and share them on a SharePoint page accessible to only CDC DSLR staff.
Although participation in the data collection is voluntary, the project team will make every effort to maximize the rate of response. The data collection instruments were designed with particular focus on streamlining questions to allow for skipping questions based on responses to previous questions, thereby minimizing response burden.
Following the distribution of the invitation to participate in the electronic assessment data collection (see Attachment J – Electronic Assessment Invitation Email), respondents will have four weeks to complete the electronic assessment and sign up for a group interview discussion. A total of two reminder emails (see Attachment L – Electronic Assessment Reminder 1 Email and Attachment M - Electronic Assessment Reminder 2 Email) will be sent to members of the respondent universe to maximize response rate for the electronic assessment. One will be sent to the entire respondent universe, and those who do not respond within 14 business days will receive an additional reminder urging them to complete the instrument. One phone call (see Attachment N – Reminder Phone Call Script) will also be made to each MCM Official who does not respond within 14 business days to remind them to complete the assessment. Those who do not respond by the end of the fourth week following the first invitation email will be considered non-responders. A reminder email (see Attachment P – Group Interview Reminder Email) will be sent two days before each group interview discussion to maximize response rate for the discussions. In order to account for schedule conflicts and no shows, we will invite up to 15 participants to each group interview discussion, with a target to achieve an ideal number 5-10 participants in each group interview discussion.
MCM Training Needs Electronic Assessment: The estimate for burden hours is based on a pilot test of the electronic assessment instrument by nine public health professionals. In the pilot test, the average time to complete the electronic assessment instrument, including time for reviewing instructions, gathering needed information, and completing the instrument, was 31 minutes (range: 7 – 59 minutes). For the purposes of estimating burden hours, the average time (i.e., 31 minutes) is used.
Virtual Group Interview Sign-Up Form: the estimate for burden hours is based on a pilot test of the group interview sign-up form by the same nine public health professionals from the electronic assessment. The software used for this assessment demonstrates that each response was submitted within the same minute. For the purposes of estimating burden hours, one minute will be used.
MCM Training Needs Virtual Group Interviews: The estimate for burden hours is based on a pilot test of the group interview instrument by nine public health professionals who piloted the assessment instrument. In the pilot test, the time to complete the group interview instrument including time for reviewing instructions, gathering needed information and completing the instrument, ranged from 50-90 minutes. For the purposes of estimating burden hours, the average time (i.e., 73 minutes) is used.
Laura A. Cathcart, Ph.D.
Training Specialist
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd. MS-D29, Atlanta GA 30329
Office: 404-718-1407
Fax: 404-639-2847
Rupesh Naik, MPH
Health Scientist
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd. MS-D18, Atlanta GA 30329
Office: 404-639-5996
Elizabeth Flanagan
ORISE Fellow
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd. MS-D29, Atlanta GA 30329
Office: 404-718-5845
Fax: 404-639-2847
Yamelith Aguilar Orozco, MPH
Evaluation Fellow (ORISE)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd. MS-D29, Atlanta GA 30329
Office: 404-718-6490
Fax: 404-639-2847
Attachment B – Sample of MCM Officials Table
Attachment C – Respondent Universe
Attachment D – Training Needs Electronic Assessment, Word Version
Attachment E – Training Needs Electronic Assessment, Web Version Screenshots
Attachment F – Virtual Group Interview Sign-up, Word Version
Attachment G – Virtual Group Interview Sign-up, Web Version Screenshots
Attachment H – Virtual Group Interview Discussion Guide, Word Version
Attachment I – Virtual Group Interview Discussion Guide, Web Version Screenshots
Attachment J – Electronic Assessment Invitation Email
Attachment K – MCM Training Needs Assessment Advertisement
Attachment L – Electronic Assessment Reminder 1 Email
Attachment M – Electronic Assessment Reminder 2 Email
Attachment N – Reminder Phone Call Script
Attachment O– Group Interview Notification Email
Attachment P – Group Interview Reminder Email
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Gilliam, Adzua H. (CDC/OSTLTS/DPHPI) |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-01-21 |