Justification for Change Request

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS)

(OMB no. 0920-0822 exp. date 2/29/2020)

Proposed Changes: Justification and Overview

March 14, 2019

Justification

This document serves as a change request for the currently approved National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey - OMB# 0920-0822, expiration date 02/29/2020 for the first phase of developmental activity, which is inclusive of cognitive testing of the new and revised survey instruments.

In late 2017, CDC learned that the survey’s response rates had declined substantially during the 2016/17 data collection compared to the 2015 data collection period. Thus, in response to the declining response rates, as well as concerns raised about the NISVS methodology by an OMB-required methodology workgroup, CDC funded a contract beginning in September 2018 to explore the feasibility and cost of implementing alternative methods for collecting NISVS data in a manner that would result in increased response rates and reductions in nonresponse bias. This contract involves three phases, including:

1. Cognitive testing of a revised computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) instrument (shortened to reduce respondents’ burden but not altering the core intimate partner violence [IPV], sexual violence [SV], and stalking content of the survey), as well as cognitive testing of web and paper versions of the survey.

2. Experimentation and feasibility testing to assess a number of alternative design features, including the sample frame (address based sample [ABS], random digit dial [RDD], web panel), mode of response (telephone, web, paper), and incentive structures that help garner participation and help reduce nonresponse.

3. Pilot testing of a new design, procedures, and a final set of survey instruments for national survey administration based on results from feasibility tests.

Project Description

The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey is a RDD survey designed to collect consistent and reliable data on the incidence, prevalence, and nature of IPV, SV, and stalking at the state and national level among U.S. women and men on an ongoing basis. NISVS data are widely used in many settings, such as state public health departments, state coalitions, federal partners, universities, and local community programs for a variety of purposes such as training materials, factsheets, policy briefs, and violence prevention campaign materials. NISVS data have previously been used by the CDC, its state grantees, and the White House. Additionally, NISVS data were collected for the DoD in 2010 and 2016/17 to understand the prevalence of these types of violence for active duty females and males and wives of active duty males, and for National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to examine IPV, SV, and stalking in the American Indian/Alaska Native population. In addition to federal and state use of these data, public use data sets are developed to promote the use of these data by external researchers.

Proposed changes

• Changes have been made to the survey submitted for OMB approval in February 2018. The length of the survey has been reduced. See Attachments A and B for a detailed description of items that have been removed, added, and modified.

• Three surveys have been developed for testing data collection modes, including versions for 1) CATI, 2) paper, and 3) web-based administrations (Attachments C, D, and E, respectively).

• A cognitive testing plan has been developed for testing the revised CATI questionnaire in addition to the web-based and paper versions of the survey.

  • The following attachments describe the cognitive testing plan in detail:

    • Attachment F – Cognitive testing plan (includes overview, participant recruitment plans, interviewer training, data analysis, communications, and timeline)

    • Attachment G – Recruitment advertisement

    • Attachment H – Recruiting screener (to ensure we obtain a diverse group of respondents with and without victimization experiences)

    • Attachment I – Informed consent form

    • Attachment J – CATI cognitive testing protocol

    • Attachment K – Paper instrument cognitive testing protocol

    • Attachment L – Web-based instrument cognitive testing protocol

A subsequent OMB change request will be submitted once the second phase (i.e., experimentation and feasibility testing) plans are finalized and approved by IRB (around May 2019). This developmental work will inform the establishment of a novel data collection approach to be tested during the pilot testing phase.

Finally, an OMB revision request will be submitted around November 2019 describing the data collection approach to be used during the pilot testing, tentatively scheduled to occur beginning in March 2020. The design to be implemented during this pilot testing phase will inform the NISVS full-scale national data collection that is expected to be implemented upon completion of the currently funded contract.

Currently approved burden and costs

In February 2018, OMB approved the NISVS data collection plans for the 2018 NISVS data collection. At the same time, plans for developmental testing associated with new data collection procedures was approved. Thus, the currently approved burden hours associated with NISVS is 22,700 burden hours associated with survey administration. This includes 10,200 hours for a 3-minute screening of 204,000 households during the 2018-19 survey administration. It also includes approval of 12,500 burden hours for 30,000 participating households that would engage in a 25-minute survey.

Additionally, we calculated burden for developmental testing related to NISVS. This estimate included as many as 5 focus groups of 10 people each for 90 min (i.e., 75 hours) + up to 3 waves of cognitive testing with up to 50 respondents per wave for 90 min each (i.e., 225 hours) + 5000 web survey respondents at 25 min each (i.e., 2083 hours) + 200 phone surveys at 25 min each (i.e., 83 hours) + 300 text back questions at 10 min each (i.e., 50 hours), for a total of 2,516 burden hours.

For the general population, it was estimated the annual burden cost would be $665,810 for 36,000 completed interviews. This cost was derived by using 204,000 as the expected number of non-participating households screened; an additional 30,000 eligible households completing the survey; and additional 5,700 people engaging in developmental testing related to NISVS.

Revised burden and costs

The contractor will conduct a total of 120 cognitive interviews in April-June 2019. Interviews will be conducted in two rounds, each with 60 interviews, including 20 in each round to test the Web instrument (40 total), 20 in each round to test the paper instrument (40 total), and 20 in each round to test the CATI instrument (40 total). Note that the number of CATI interviews may change slightly (i.e., the number of Web/Paper interviews may decrease accordingly) if CDC determines that saturation in comments has been reached before the 40 interviews are complete. We anticipate each interview will take approximately one hour, and will provide respondents with $40 to help defray the costs of participating, such as transportation or child care.

The total burden for the cognitive testing phase of the study is estimated at 120 hours. This is derived from the total burden hours for respondents that complete a 60-minute cognitive test of the survey.

Additionally, we anticipate that 4,000 respondents will complete a 25-minute survey in the experimentation and feasibility testing phase, and 200 respondents will complete a 25-minute survey in the pilot testing phase. Thus, the total estimated burden for the entire study is 1,870 hours.

Table 1. Estimated Burden Hours for 2019-2020 Data Collection

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Number of Responses per Respondent	Average Burden per Response (in hours)	Total Burden (in hours)
Cognitive testing
Paper Questionnaire	40	1	60/60	2,400 minutes (40 hours)
Web Questionnaire	40	1	60/60	2,400 minutes (40 hours)
Phone Questionnaire	40	1	60/60	2,400 minutes (40 hours)
Experimentation and feasibility testing	4,000	1	25/60	100,000 minutes (1,667 hours)
Pilot testing	200	1	25/60	5,000 minutes (83 hours)
Total				112,200 minutes (1,870 hours)

Estimated Respondent Burden Costs for 2019 Data Collection

For the full data collection to be completed in 2019-2020, it is estimated the annual burden cost will be $77,411. This cost was derived by using 21,200 as the expected number of non-participating households screened (9,500 address-based sample; 11,700 RDD), as well as 120 cognitive interviews and 4,200 completed interviews during feasibility and pilot testing of the instruments.

The estimates of individual annualized costs are based on the number of respondents interviewed and the amount of time required from individuals who were reached by telephone and agreed to the one time interview. The average hourly wage was obtained from the 2017 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For the RDD survey, it takes up to 3 minutes to determine whether a household is eligible to complete the verbal informed consent. For those who agree to participate, the total time required is approximately 25 minutes, on average, including screening and verbal informed consent. The average hourly earnings for those in private, non-farm positions are $26.42 (U.S. Department of Labor, 2017).

Estimated Burden Costs for 2019-2020 Data Collection

Type of Respondent	Form name	Number of Respondents	Number of Responses per Respondent	Average Burden per Responses	Average Hourly Wage Rate (in dollars)	Total Respondent Cost
Cognitive testing	NISVS Survey Instrument (Attachment C-E)	120	1	60/60	$26.42	$3,170
Non-Participating Household, Address-Based Sample (Screened)	NISVS Survey Instrument (Attachment C-E)	9,500	1	Mar-60	$26.42	$12,550
Non-Participating Household, Random-Digit-Dial (Screened)	NISVS Survey Instrument (Attachment C-E)	11,700	1	Mar-60	$26.42	$15,456
Eligible Household (Completes Survey)	NISVS Survey Instrument (Attachment C-E)	4,200	1	25/60	$26.42	$46,235
Total						$77,411

New/Revised Data Instruments

A revised version of the CATI survey is included in Attachment C. New versions of the paper and web-based survey instruments are included in Attachments D and E, respectively.

Created: 7 December 2009