Proposed Data Collection Submitted for Public Comment and Recommendations

AGENCY:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

ACTION:

Notice with comment period.

SUMMARY:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), as part of its continuing effort to reduce public burden and maximize the utility of government information, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to take this opportunity to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This notice invites comment on the information collection project titled “Assessing Education Agency Staff Perceptions of School Climate and Youth Access to Services.” This study provides in-depth assessment of HIV and STD prevention efforts in three local education agencies funded by CDC's Division of Adolescent and School Health.

DATES:

Written comments must be received on or before October 16, 2017.

ADDRESSES:

You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. CDC-2017-0056 by any of the following methods:

• Federal eRulemaking Portal: Regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.
• Mail: Leroy A. Richardson, Information Collection Review Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE., MS-D74, Atlanta, Georgia 30329.

Instructions: All submissions received must include the agency name and Docket Number. All relevant comments received will be posted without change to Regulations.gov, including any personal information provided. For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to Regulations.gov.

Please note: All public comment should be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking portal (regulations.gov) or by U.S. mail to the address listed above.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

To request more information on the proposed project or to obtain a copy of the information collection plan and instruments, contact Leroy A. Richardson, Information Collection Review Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE., MS-D74, Atlanta, Georgia 30329; phone: 404-639-7570; Email: omb@cdc.gov.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

Under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA) (44 U.S.C. 3501-3520), Federal agencies must obtain approval from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for each collection of information they conduct or sponsor. In addition, the PRA also requires Federal agencies to provide a 60-day notice in the Federal Register concerning each proposed collection of information, including each new proposed collection, each proposed extension of existing collection of information, and each reinstatement of previously approved information collection before submitting the collection to OMB for approval. To comply with this requirement, we are publishing this notice of a proposed data collection as described below.

Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of information; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information to be collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, including through the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) estimates of capital or start-up costs and costs of operation, maintenance, and purchase of services to provide information. Burden means the total time, effort, or financial resources expended by persons to generate, maintain, retain, disclose or provide information to or for a Federal agency. This includes the time needed to review instructions; to develop, acquire, install and utilize technology and systems for the purpose of collecting, validating and verifying information, processing and maintaining information, and disclosing and providing information; to train personnel and to be able to respond to a collection of information, to search data sources, to complete and review the collection of information; and to transmit or otherwise disclose the information.

Proposed Project

Assessing Education Agency Staff Perceptions of School Climate and Youth Access to Services (OMB Control Number 0920-1048, expiration date 2/28/2018)—Revision—Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH), National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Background and Brief Description

HIV infections remain high among young men who have sex with men (YMSM). The estimated number of new HIV infections increased between 2008 and 2010 both overall and among MSM ages 13 to 24. Furthermore, sexual risk behaviors associated with HIV, other sexually transmitted disease (STD), and pregnancy often emerge in adolescence. For example, 2015 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) data revealed 41.2% of U.S. high school students reported having had sex, and among those who had sex in the previous three months, only 56.9% reported having used a condom during last sexual intercourse. In addition, 2015 YRBSS data revealed high school students identifying as gay, lesbian, and bisexual were more likely to report engaging in sexual risk-taking behaviors than heterosexual students.

Given the disproportionate risk for HIV among YMSM ages 13-24, it is important to find ways to reach the younger youth (i.e., ages 13-19) in this range to decrease sexual risk behaviors and increase health-promoting behaviors such as routine HIV testing. Schools provide one opportunity for this. Because schools enroll more than 22 million teens (ages 14-19) and often have existing health and social services infrastructure, schools and their staff members are well-positioned to connect youth to a wide range of needed services, including housing assistance, support groups, and sexual health services such as HIV testing. As a result, CDC's DASH has focused a number of HIV and STD prevention efforts on strategies that can be implemented in or centered on schools.

However, conducting HIV and STD prevention work (particularly work that is designed to specifically meet the needs of YMSM), can be challenging. School is not always a welcoming environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. Harassment, bullying, and verbal and physical assault are often reported, and such unsupportive environments and victimization among LGBT youth are associated with a variety of negative outcomes, including truancy, substance use, poor mental health, HIV and STD risk, and even suicide.

The CDC requests a one-year OMB approval for the revision of the information collection entitled, “Assessing Education Agency Staff Perceptions of School Climate and Youth Access to Services.” The information collection uses 2 separate, but complementary, information collections to conduct assessment of HIV and STD prevention efforts that are taking place in three local education agencies (LEA) funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) under strategy 4 (School-Centered HIV/STD Prevention for Young Men Who Have Sex with Men) of PS13-1308: Promoting Adolescent Health through School-Based HIV/STD Prevention and School-Based Surveillance. This data collection will provide data and reports for the funded LEAs, and will allow the LEAs to identify areas of the program that are working well and other areas that will need additional improvement. In addition, the findings will allow CDC to determine the potential impact of currently recommended strategies and make changes to those recommendations if necessary. This revision request involves no changes to instruments, protocols, or burden estimates per respondent or per data collection cycle; however, annualized burden estimates have technical changes due to changes in the number of data collections planned and the length of clearance requested.

The first information collection will involve collecting information from a total of up to 735 LEA employees in 3 LEAs through a Web-based instrument tailored to each LEA. The instrument will include items that ask education agency staff about professional development, referral practices, community linkages/partners, school climate for LGBTQ youth, school policies and practices, and staff comfort levels in helping address the health needs of YMSM.

The second information collection will be conducted in only 1 LEA (Broward County Public Schools) and is designed to provide an in-depth assessment of one LEA as a way to supplement the Web-based data collection with more detailed information. This information collection will involve in-person interviews with up to 44 LEA employees (2 district level employees, and up to 6 school level employees in each of 7 schools) to learn about six domains that can impact school climate: Policy, practice, programs, professional development, place, and pedagogy.

Both the Web-based instrument and in-person interviews will be administered in the 2017-2018 school year as the final data collection in a series of data collections for the 5-year PS13-1308 cooperative agreement. Although some staff may have participated in previous years' data collections, this is not a longitudinal design and individual staff member responses will not be tracked across the years. No personally identifiable information will be collected.

All school staff members will receive informed consent forms prior to participation in the information collection. The consent form explains the study and also explains participants may choose not to complete the Web-based instrument or participate in the interviews with no penalty and no impact on their job or relationship with the LEA. Participation is completely voluntary.

For the Web-based instrument, the estimated burden per response ranges from 20-25 minutes. This variation in burden is due to the slight variability in skip patterns that may occur with certain responses and variations in the reading speed of respondents. The burden estimates presented here are based on the assumption of a 25-minute response time per response. The estimated annualized burden of this data collection is 306 hours for respondents. There are no costs to respondents other than their time.

For the Web-based instrument, the estimated burden per response ranges from 60-90 minutes, depending on whether the respondent is a district-level administrator, a school-level administrator, or another school staff member. The burden estimates presented here are based on the assumption of a 1-hour response time per district-level and school-level administrator response and a 1.5-hour response time per school staff member response. The estimated annualized burden of this data collection is 58 hours for respondents. There are no costs to respondents other than their time.

The two information collections combine for a total estimated annualized burden of 367 hours for respondents.