80 FR 34449 - Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; Comment Request

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 115 (June 16, 2015)

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 115 (Tuesday, June 16, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 34449-34451]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-14728]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request

    In compliance with Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995 concerning opportunity for public comment on proposed 
collections of information, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration (SAMHSA) will publish periodic summaries of 
proposed projects. To request more information on the proposed projects 
or to obtain a copy of the information collection plans, call the 
SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer at (240) 276-1243.
    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collections of 
information are 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; and (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.

Proposed Project: Survey of State Underage Drinking Prevention Policies 
and Practices--(OMB No. 0930-0316)--Revision

    The Sober Truth on Preventing Underage Drinking Act (the ``STOP 
Act'') \1\ states that the ``Secretary [of Health and Human Services] 
shall . . . annually issue a report on each state's performance in 
enacting, enforcing, and creating laws, regulations, and programs to 
prevent or reduce underage drinking.'' The Secretary has delegated 
responsibility for this report to SAMHSA. Therefore, SAMHSA has 
developed a Survey of State Underage Drinking Prevention Policies and 
Practices (the ``State Survey'') to provide input for the state-by-
state report on prevention and enforcement activities related to 
underage drinking component of the Annual Report to Congress on the 
Prevention and Reduction of Underage Drinking (``Report to Congress'').
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    \1\ Public Law 109-422. It is assumed Congress intended to 
include the District of Columbia as part of the Report to Congress.
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    The STOP Act also requires the Secretary to develop ``a set of 
measures to be used in preparing the report on best practices'' and to 
consider categories including but not limited to the following:
    Category #1: Sixteen \2\ specific underage drinking laws/
regulations enacted at the state level (e.g., laws prohibiting sales to 
minors; laws related to minors in possession of alcohol);
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    \2\ Nine additional policies have been added to the Report to 
Congress pursuant to Congressional appropriations language or the 
Secretary's authority granted by the STOP Act.
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    Category #2: Enforcement and educational programs to promote 
compliance with these laws/regulations;
    Category #3: Programs targeted to youths, parents, and caregivers 
to deter underage drinking and the number of individuals served by 
these programs;
    Category #4: The amount that each state invests, per youth capita, 
on the prevention of underage drinking broken into five categories: (a) 
Compliance check programs in retail outlets; (b) Checkpoints and 
saturation patrols that include the goal of reducing and deterring 
underage drinking; (c) Community-based, school-based, and higher-
education-based programs to prevent underage drinking; (d) Underage 
drinking prevention programs that target youth within the juvenile 
justice and child welfare systems; and (e) Any other state efforts or 
programs that target underage drinking.
    Congress' purpose in mandating the collection of data on state 
policies and programs through the State Survey is to provide 
policymakers and the public with currently unavailable but much needed 
information regarding state underage drinking prevention policies and 
programs. SAMHSA and other

[[Page 34450]]

Federal agencies that have underage drinking prevention as part of 
their mandate will use the results of the State Survey to inform 
federal programmatic priorities. The information gathered by the State 
Survey will also establish a resource for state agencies and the 
general public for assessing policies and programs in their own state 
and for becoming familiar with the programs, policies, and funding 
priorities of other states.
    Because of the broad scope of data required by the STOP Act, SAMHSA 
relies on existing data sources where possible to minimize the survey 
burden on the states. SAMHSA uses data on state underage drinking 
policies from the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism's 
Alcohol Policy Information System (APIS), an authoritative compendium 
of state alcohol-related laws. The APIS data is augmented by SAMHSA 
with original legal research on state laws and policies addressing 
underage drinking to include all of the STOP Act's requested laws and 
regulations (Category #1 of the four categories included in the STOP 
Act, as described above, page 2).
    The STOP Act mandates that the State Survey assess ``best 
practices'' and emphasize the importance of building collaborations 
with federally recognized tribal governments (``tribal governments''). 
It also emphasizes the importance at the federal level of promoting 
interagency collaboration and to that end established the Interagency 
Coordinating Committee on the Prevention of Underage Drinking (ICCPUD). 
SAMHSA has determined that to fulfill the Congressional intent, it is 
critical that the State Survey gather information from the states 
regarding the best practices standards that they apply to their 
underage drinking programs, collaborations between states and tribal 
governments, and the development of state-level interagency 
collaborations similar to ICCPUD.
    SAMHSA has determined that data on Categories #2, #3, and #4 
mandated in the STOP Act (as listed on page 2) (enforcement and 
educational programs; programs targeting youth, parents, and 
caregivers; and state expenditures) as well as states' best practices 
standards, collaborations with tribal governments, and state-level 
interagency collaborations are not available from secondary sources and 
therefore must be collected from the states themselves. The State 
Survey is therefore necessary to fulfill the Congressional mandate 
found in the STOP Act.
    The State Survey is a single document that is divided into four 
sections, as follows:
    (1) Enforcement programs to promote compliance with underage 
drinking laws and regulations (as described in Category #2 above, page 
2);
    (2) Programs targeted to youth, parents, and caregivers to deter 
underage drinking (as described in Category #3 above, page 2);
    (3) State interagency collaboration to implement prevention 
programs, state best-practice standards, and collaborations with tribal 
governments (as described above, page 4);
    (4) The amount that each state invests on the prevention of 
underage drinking in the categories specified in the STOP Act (see 
description of Category #4, above, page 2) and descriptions of any 
dedicated fees, taxes, or fines used to raise these funds.
    The number of questions in each section is as follows:

Section 1: 31 questions
Section 2A: 30 questions \3\
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    \3\ Note that the number of questions in Section 2A is an 
estimate. This section asks states to identify their programs that 
are specific to underage drinking prevention. For each program 
identified there are six follow-up questions. Based on the average 
number of programs per state reported in the survey's four year 
history, it is anticipated that states will report an average of 
five programs for a total of 30 questions.
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Section 2B: 7 questions
Section 2C: 6 questions
Section 2D: 15 questions
TOTAL: 89 questions

    It is anticipated that respondents will actually respond to only a 
subset of this total. This is because the survey is designed with 
``skip logic,'' which means that many questions will only be directed 
to a subset of respondents who report the existence of particular 
programs or activities.
    This latest version of the survey has been revised slightly. There 
are no new questions, nor were any deleted. All revisions are for the 
purpose of clarifying the existing questions. The total number of 
questions remains the same, so no additional time burden should be 
placed on the respondents. All questions continue to ask only for 
readily available data.
    The changes can be summarized as follows:
    Some global changes have been made; for example, the current HHS 
and SAMHSA style guides are applied so that ``state'' and ``federal'' 
are not capitalized. In addition, some instruction sentences are put in 
bold font, in response to frequent questions from respondents for 
clarification of these questions. These include questions about the 
time period for which they are asked to report specific data, or the 
type of prevention programs that should be included in responses.
    In addition, the following specific changes are recommended as 
clarifications or improvements of existing questions:
    Part 1, Enforcement:
    A question requesting the total number of licensees in the state 
has been moved up to become the second question. It was previously 
located in the set of questions about state compliance checks, but was 
skipped if the respondent answered that the state does do not do 
compliance checks. The number of licensees is a general piece of 
information that could be very useful in analyzing survey response 
data, and therefore should be collected from all states, regardless of 
whether they conduct compliance checks.
    The wording of the question asking for the number of random 
compliance checks conducted by the state has been changed, and a 
definition of random checks is included. The current wording is 
confusing,\4\ and has often elicited an answer that reflects all 
licenses in the state, rather than the actual number of random checks. 
Respondents have also requested clarification of the definition of 
random checks.
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    \4\ ``Please provide number of licensees subject to random 
compliance checks/decoy operations.''
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    Part 2A, Programs:
    Two changes have been made to shorten the length of program 
descriptions, in which states describe their underage drinking 
prevention programs. The program descriptions are the lengthiest 
portion of the survey response and are significant contributors to the 
length of the Report to Congress. In addition, the length of the 
responses may pose a burden on state respondents. The two changes are:
    (a) The instructions in the section have been modified to state: 
``Please briefly describe the program, including primary purpose, 
population served, and methods used.''
    (b) The number of programs reported on has been reduced from 15 to 
10. In the 2014 survey, 43 states (84%) reported 10 or fewer programs. 
The burden on respondents from those eight states that report more than 
10 programs could be reduced by limiting the responses to 10 programs.
    Part 2D, Expenditures:
    In response to the question about expenditures on school-based 
prevention programs, some respondents have reported all expenditures 
for K-12, which resulted in artificially inflated data. The following 
statement has been added to the instructions: ``If it is not possible 
to distinguish funds expended specifically for the prevention of 
underage drinking from a general fund

[[Page 34451]]

targeted to an activity or program listed below, please check `These 
data are not available in my state.' ''
    To ensure that the State Survey obtains the necessary data while 
minimizing the burden on the states, SAMHSA has conducted a lengthy and 
comprehensive planning process. It has sought advice from key 
stakeholders (as mandated by the STOP Act) including hosting an all-day 
stakeholders meeting, conducting two field tests with state officials 
likely to be responsible for completing the State Survey, and 
investigating and testing various State Survey formats, online delivery 
systems, and data collection methodologies.
    Based on these investigations, SAMHSA collects the required data 
using an online survey data collection platform (SurveyMonkey). Links 
to the four sections of the survey are distributed to states via email. 
The State Survey is sent to each state governor's office and the Office 
of the Mayor of the District of Columbia. Based on the experience from 
the last four years of administering the State Survey, it is 
anticipated that the state governors will designate staff from state 
agencies that have access to the requested data (typically state 
Alcohol Beverage Control [ABC] agencies and state Substance Abuse 
Program agencies). SAMHSA provides both telephone and electronic 
technical support to state agency staff and emphasizes that the states 
are only expected to provide data that is readily available and are not 
required to provide data that has not already been collected. The 
burden estimate below takes into account these assumptions.
    The estimated annual response burden to collect this information is 
as follows:

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                                                 Number of        Responses/        Burden/       Annual burden
                 Instrument                     respondents       respondent     response (hrs)       (hrs)
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State Questionnaire.........................              51                1             17.7            902.7
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    Send comments to Summer King, SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer, 
Room 2-1057, One Choke Cherry Road, Rockville, MD 20857 or email her a 
copy at [email protected]. Written comments should be received 
by August 17, 2015.

Summer King,
Statistician.
[FR Doc. 2015-14728 Filed 6-15-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4162-20-P