Justification

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0970-0401)

T ITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

Sexual Risk Avoidance (SRA) Social Media Marketing Campaign

PURPOSE:

The purpose of the planned activities is to conduct qualitative research to test proposed products, messages, and concepts with youth to inform a creative campaign for youth encouraging them to avoid sexual risk behaviors. The research conducted under this generic IC will be used to inform the development of youth materials and messages about avoiding sexual risks.

The contractor (RTI International) will conduct all data collection related to the proposed approach. Data collection will consist of a screening process to facilitate recruitment of participants into the study and a series of remote, online testing sessions and activities.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

Respondents include diverse groups of youth and young adults aged 10 – 22 years old from different regions around the U.S., with targeted recruitment of high-risk youth to ensure their voices are heard.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

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

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

[] Focus Group [X ] Other: remote product/message testing

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:__LeBretia White______________________________________________

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

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ X ] Yes [ ] No (See Supporting Statement for separation and of PII collected during screening from the primary data collected and analyzed to inform the campaign.)

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

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

Gifts or Payments:

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

Participants will be offered a token of appreciation of up to $15 as a gift card for food (i.e., Starbucks), music, or movie tickets for taking part in the research. As participants often have competing demands for their time, incentives are used to encourage participation. The payment amounts for this project were determined through discussions with the contractor, recruitment firms, and FYSB staff with expertise in recruiting participants and conducting interviews about avoiding risky behavior and similar health topics with the study population. This incentive will account for participation in 1 hour of activities on the remote testing platform.

Numerous empirical studies have shown that incentives can significantly increase response rates.^i-ii Incentives are also necessary to ensure that there is sufficient representation from certain groups that are more difficult to recruit such as low socio-economic groups and high-risk populations.ⁱⁱⁱ Low or no incentives can also potentially result in a difficult and lengthy recruitment process. This can cause delays in initiating data collection, which can lead to overall timeline delays and increased costs to the government. Ultimately, the absence of an appropriate incentive could impede the development of clear, persuasive messages and a communication strategy on encouraging youth to avoid risky behaviors which is the goal of this project.

BURDEN HOURS

Per year, we expect that each participant in the online panel will complete up to 4 activities, which take about 15 minutes each to complete.

Estimated Annual Reporting Burden
Type of Collection	No. of Respondents	Annual Frequency per Response	Hours per Response	Total Hours
Remote testing	70	4	0.25	70

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $39,000 per year for a total of 2 years

Item/Activity	Details	$ Amount
FYSB oversight of contractor and project	10% of FTE: GS-13 Program Specialist and 15% of FTE for contractor staff	$4,000 $5,000
Recruitment, data collection including incentives, materials, online platform hosting, analysis, travel, overhead and reporting (contractor)	Labor hours and ODCs	$30,000
Total per year for a total of 2 years		$39,000

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?

The study sample will be a nonprobability-based purposeful sample. Therefore, the results are not generalizable to the general population. The audience for this research will be diverse groups of youth and young adults aged 10 -22 years old from different regions around the U.S., with targeted recruitment of high-risk youth to ensure their voices are heard. The contractor anticipates connecting with youth participants through the project’s youth-serving grantee organizations.

Initial data collection will consist of 15 remote testing activities per year (up to 70 participants in total per year). Remote testing activities will occur up to 15 times annually, recruiting from the same panel of youth; these youth panelists will have the opportunity to participate in up to 4 remote testing activities per person per year. Most youth participants will be recruited through the various youth-serving grantees that are connected to the project. In some cases, the contractor may supplement the youth population from youth-serving grantee organizations with additional outreach (e.g. internet ads and social media posts).

Screening data may be collected using a standardized screening instrument to facilitate recruitment of participants into the study for remote testing. The screener will be completed through the online research platform as part of private/confidential profile set-up. The recruiters will then collect and/or confirm the names, emails, and phone numbers of the eligible individuals who agree to participate and have been given an appointment for remote testing. This information will be used to send participants a confirmation of their participation in the data collection.

Statistical power is not applicable because this is a qualitative study.

Administration of the Instrument

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

[X] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[X] Telephone

[ ] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

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

A research team member will manage the online testing panel/community by adding the activities, rewarding points to members for completion, analyzing the reponses, and submitting electronic gift cards upon completion of 1-hour of activities. However, all activities will be remote, unmoderated, meaning participants can complete them at any time without interaction with our research staff.

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

Instructions for completing Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback”

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION: Provide the name of the collection that is the subject of the request. (e.g. Comment card for soliciting feedback on xxxx)

PURPOSE: Provide a brief description of the purpose of this collection and how it will be used. If this is part of a larger study or effort, please include this in your explanation.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS: Provide a brief description of the targeted group or groups for this collection of information. These groups must have experience with the program.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: Check one box. If you are requesting approval of other instruments under the generic, you must complete a form for each instrument.

CERTIFICATION: Please read the certification carefully. If you incorrectly certify, the collection will be returned as improperly submitted or it will be disapproved.

Personally Identifiable Information: Provide answers to the questions. Note: Agencies should only collect PII to the extent necessary, and they should only retain PII for the period of time that is necessary to achieve a specific objective.

Gifts or Payments: If you answer yes to the question, please describe the incentive and provide a justification for the amount.

BURDEN HOURS:

Category of Respondents: Identify who you expect the respondents to be in terms of the following categories: (1) Individuals or Households; (2) Private Sector; (3) State, local, or tribal governments; or (4) Federal Government. Only one type of respondent can be selected per row.

No. of Respondents: Provide an estimate of the Number of Respondents.

Participation Time: Provide an estimate of the amount of time (in minutes) required for a respondent to participate (e.g. fill out a survey or participate in a focus group)

Burden: Provide the Annual burden hours: Multiply the Number of Respondents and the Participation Time then divide by 60.

FEDERAL COST: Provide an estimate of the annual cost to the Federal government.

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. Please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them. If the answer is yes, to the first question, you may provide the sampling plan in an attachment.

Administration of the Instrument: Identify how the information will be collected. More than one box may be checked. Indicate whether there will be interviewers (e.g. for surveys) or facilitators (e.g., for focus groups) used.

Submit all instruments, instructions, and scripts are submitted with the request.

i Abreu, D. A., & Winters, F. (1999). Using monetary incentives to reduce attrition in the survey of income and program participation. Proceedings of the Survey Research Methods Section of the American Statistical Association.

ii Shettle, C., & Mooney, G. (1999). Monetary incentives in U.S. government surveys. Journal of Official Statistics, 15, 231–250.

iii Groth, SW. (2010). Honorarium or coercion: use of incentives for participants in clinical research. Journal of the New York State Nurses Association.

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