80 FR 46239 - Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; 2016 Census Test

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Census Bureau

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 149 (August 4, 2015)

The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, 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.

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 149 (Tuesday, August 4, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 46239-46242]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-19005]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

 Census Bureau


Proposed Information Collection; Comment Request; 2016 Census 
Test

AGENCY: U.S. Census Bureau, Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort 
to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, 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.

DATES: To ensure consideration, written comments must be submitted on 
or before October 5, 2015.

[[Page 46240]]


ADDRESSES: Direct all written comments to Jennifer Jessup, Departmental 
Paperwork Clearance Officer, Department of Commerce, Room 6616, 14th 
and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet 
at [email protected]).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Requests for additional information or 
copies of the information collection instrument(s) and instructions 
should be directed to Robin Pennington, Census Bureau, HQ-4K065, 
Washington, DC 20233; (301) 763-8132 (or via email at 
[email protected]).

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

I. Abstract

    During the years preceding the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau will 
pursue its commitment to reduce the costs of conducting a decennial 
census, while maintaining our commitment to quality. A primary 
decennial census cost driver is collection of data from members of the 
public from which the Census Bureau received no reply via initially 
offered response options. Improving our methods for increasing the 
number of people who take advantage of self-response options 
(``Optimizing Self-Response'') and further refining the questionnaire 
content will help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of census 
operations and substantially reduce costs. Additionally, making our 
methods for enumerating households that do not initially respond 
(``Nonresponse Followup'') more efficient can contribute to a less 
costly census while maintaining high-quality results.
    The Census Bureau will conduct a 2016 Census Test, with components 
designed to test new approaches or validate existing approaches and 
systems integration related to (1) Optimizing Self-Response, including 
contact strategies, language support, and questionnaire content; and 
(2) Nonresponse Followup, including administrative records usage, and 
technological and operational improvements.

Optimizing Self-Response

    The 2016 Census Test is designed to evaluate several strategies to 
optimize the rate at which the public self-responds to the census. A 
higher rate of self-response will mean fewer cases for the Nonresponse 
Followup operation, saving taxpayer money. Significant areas of 
continued testing are:
     Evaluation and refinement of our ``Internet push'' 
strategy, where we do not initially send paper questionnaires to 
households, but rather invite them to complete the questionnaire 
online. We will evaluate the number of online invitations necessary 
before sending a full paper questionnaire to an address.
     Updated and modernized household contact strategies to 
encourage self response, including text/short message service (SMS) 
communication and postcard reminders.
     Refinement of our non-English support for respondents with 
limited English proficiency, the inclusion of non-English language 
letters and/or brochures in mailings, and web response addresses 
(Uniform Resource Locators, or URLs) in various languages on the 
incoming envelope.
     Further evaluation of questionnaire content:
    [cir] We will include testing of a combined race and Hispanic 
origin question that is similar to one the Census Bureau is using in 
the 2015 National Content Test. Based on results from the 2010 Race and 
Hispanic Origin Alternative Questionnaire Experiment (Compton, et. al. 
2012), the 2016 Census Test provides an opportunity to further test a 
combined race and Hispanic origin question.
    [cir] On the Internet instrument only, we will test a terminology 
change in the race and ethnicity question specific to the ``Black and 
African American'' category, by comparing the use of ``American'' to 
the abbreviated ``Am.'' This addresses a problem with this abbreviation 
related to software providing Section 508 compliance \1\. We are 
testing this on the Internet initially because the path for testing and 
screens on the Internet are more easily deployed than paper versions. 
We will continue and expand testing this terminology change with paper 
questionnaires (self-response) in future testing.
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    \1\ Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. `794 d) as 
amended by the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (Pub. L. 205-220)
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    [cir] For the relationship question, the 2016 Census Test will 
include testing new response categories for opposite sex and same sex 
husband/wife/spouse and unmarried partner. In addition, the Internet 
data collection instrument will also provide two versions of the 
relationship question, with one version eliminating the response 
categories associated with unrelated household members (``roomer or 
boarder'' and ``housemate or roommate'').
    [cir] The Internet data collection instrument will also include 
various ways to collect and confirm the number of persons residing at 
an address. Respondents will see one of three screens about the 
existence of people on the roster: one that displays the residence rule 
and asks for the number of people in the household, one that asks for 
the number of people who live in the household but puts the residence 
rule in the help text, and one that asks if any other people live at 
the household with the residence rule in the help text. After the names 
of the roster members are collected, the respondent will then see one 
of two series of undercount questions: one series asks for additional 
people on two separate screens, and another series asks for additional 
people on only one screen. After the demographic items are collected, 
the respondent will then see overcount questions in one of three forms, 
depending on test panel. Some respondents will see seven topic-based 
questions that ask if anyone in the household stayed at a particular 
type of place. Some respondents who live in small households (that is, 
households with three or fewer people) will see one person-based 
question that asks if a specific person stayed in any of a number of 
places. Other respondents will see two household-level questions that 
first ask if anyone in the household stayed in another housing unit or 
if anyone in the household stayed in a group quarters. The quality of 
the final household roster created from these experimentally applied 
questions will be evaluated by a coverage reinterview conducted by 
telephone that will contain extensive probes about missed roster 
members or other places that people sometimes stay.

Nonresponse Followup (NRFU)

    The 2016 Census Test will be instrumental to the Census Bureau in 
testing new implementation and management processes, the use of 
automated data collection tools, and approaches such as using 
administrative records and third party data to reduce the NRFU 
workload. This test allows us to refine our use of administrative 
records, technologies to support field data collection and management, 
and operational procedures.
     Administrative Records
     Continued evaluation of our plan to use administrative 
records and other third party data (such as from the Internal Revenue 
Service, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, United States 
Postal Service, etc.) to identify vacant housing units that do not 
require a field visit during the nonresponse follow-up operation. 
Historically, the costs to verify and follow up with these types of 
units have been significant
     Continued evaluation of our plan to use the ``occupancy'' 
status of administrative records sources to

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enumerate housing units after a certain number of NRFU contact 
attempts. This includes quality evaluations of the sources of the 
administrative records, and reviews of the procedures by which those 
administrative records are produced (working with the source agencies, 
etc.). This will help us to decide in what scenarios the use of 
administrative records is most appropriate, the ideal number of 
personal visits to attempt before enumerating with these records, and 
several other research questions.
     Supplemental mailings to housing units that have been 
removed from the NRFU operation, giving respondents an additional 
chance to respond to the 2016 Census Test before final disposition 
using administrative record source data.
     Technological Improvements:
     Evaluation of our refined operational control system and 
case assignment processes, including identifying efficiencies for field 
data collection, as well as automated assignments that are based on 
enumerator availability and other criteria.
     Continued testing of a software to record housing unit 
status, interview, and enumerations at nonresponding housing units for 
operational readiness, as well as the ability to deploy the software on 
mobile devices that are Census owned, personally owned, or provided as 
a service.
     Continued evaluation of automated training for field 
employees.
     The inclusion of additional language translations to our 
enumeration software. Previous versions of this software provided 
translations in Spanish only.
     Operational Procedures:
     Comparison of the effectiveness of data collection modes 
(in-field enumeration vs. centralized telephone contact) to conduct 
telephone follow up activities.
     Use of innovative survey methodologies for NRFU cases, 
including the continued testing of different stopping rules for 
enumerators (maximum visits before stopping work, etc.); further 
evaluation of in-person vs. phone contacts, and continued research on 
when and how to attempt to obtain proxy responses for a housing unit.
     Implementation of a refined field management structure, 
designed to lessen the number of supervisors required in the field for 
conducting the NRFU operation.
     Testing our re-interview operation, including the rules by 
which cases are selected for re-interview, the use of a handheld device 
to input re-interview data, and a re-designed approach to using call 
center staff to make the first attempt at re-interviewing each case, 
where appropriate. We will also test the use of paradata collected from 
our automated data collection instrument, such as the recorded Global 
Positioning System (GPS) location of field interviews and the length of 
time for interviews to be conducted, to help detect and deter 
falsification by enumerators.

II. Method of Collection

Test Sites

    The Census Bureau will conduct the 2016 Census Test concurrently in 
portions of Harris County, TX and Los Angeles County, CA. These 
locations offer particular characteristics that support the Census 
Bureau's research goals. Conducting the 2016 Census Test in urban areas 
will allow us to test our assignment routing strategies in densely 
populated areas and understand challenges to field enumeration. Both 
sites have populations that are linguistically diverse and provide an 
appropriate context to test our language and translation services. 
Lastly, both areas contain ``hard to count'' populations and areas with 
high vacancy rates that will allow us to test our follow-up activities 
with these populations in this environment.

Self-Response

    The housing units in the selected areas included in the 2016 Census 
Test will be contacted by mail and invited to complete their 
questionnaire via the Internet. Internet self response contact methods 
include a letter, postcard, and text (either as an invitation or as 
reminders), a multi-lingual brochure (either with a letter or in the 
envelope with URL). We will also test optimal strategies for delivering 
mail materials, including paper questionnaires, to households who do 
not or cannot respond online.
    We will continue to test our Non-ID processing methodology as 
another strategy for optimizing self-response. Non-ID Processing refers 
to address matching and geocoding for Census responses that lack a 
preassigned Census identification code. In the 2016 Census Test, we 
will continue to develop our capability to conduct real-time Non-ID 
processing. This test will allow us to interactively prompt a 
respondent (while they are still online filling out the form) for 
additional address and location information if the respondent's address 
cannot be matched to a Census ID or geocoded. A Non-ID respondent whose 
address cannot be matched to our address database will be prompted 
during his or her Internet self-response session to confirm the address 
information they provided while filling out the form, or to indicate 
the location of their address on an on-screen map. This test will allow 
us to better understand requirements related to scalability of planned 
systems and determine metrics for ongoing monitoring and evaluation. If 
the address match is not resolved during automated processing Census 
staff will attempt to manually match or geocode addresses. We estimate 
that about one percent of the overall Non-ID respondents will be 
contacted as part of the manual matching process. Additionally, we plan 
to test a mechanism for validating all Non-ID respondents through the 
use of administrative records. To further explore our methodology for 
validating Non-ID responses, a sample of Non-ID responses will be 
selected for re-contact. The re-contact is intended to validate and re-
collect information from a respondent to confirm the existence of the 
address and the persons enumerated at that address. The re-contact may 
occur through centralized phone contacts or in-field enumeration.

Nonresponse Followup (NRFU)

    If a household does not ultimately respond to the self-response 
portion of the test by a specified date, it is included in the universe 
for the NRFU portion of the test, during which enumerators will attempt 
to follow up with nonresponding households to collect data. The Census 
Bureau will test centralized phone contacts to nonresponding cases 
prior to sending cases to an enumerator in the field. In advance of the 
full deployment of enumerators following up with nonresponding 
households, a small number of the nonresponding cases may be subject to 
early followup to allow for live testing of systems, data collection 
applications, and field procedures.
    The Census Bureau will continue to test our use of administrative 
records for the removal of vacant housing units from the NRFU universe 
and to determine rules for when we can stop making visit attempts to 
households, and refer to administrative record data instead. For each 
of these cases, we will test a supplemental mailout to any household 
that is removed from the NRFU workload in this way as a final attempt 
to generate a self-response.
    The Census Bureau will conduct NRFU with a combination of Census-
owned, enumerator-owned, and mobile devices provided as a service using 
the Census developed enumeration

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software. The use of employee-owned equipment/services is commonly 
referred to as ``Bring Your Own Device,'' or BYOD. It is important to 
note, that for Census-owned devices, BYOD devices, or devices provided 
as a service that the data collection application collects and securely 
transmits respondents' data. The use of mobile devices that are Census-
owned, enumerator-owned, or provided as a service will enable the 
Census Bureau to assess options for a secure and cost-effective 
approach to the NRFU data collection.

Nonresponse Followup Quality Control Reinterview (NRFU-RI)

    A sample of cases that have been enumerated via Nonresponse 
Followup will be selected for reinterview. This operation is intended 
to help us pinpoint possible cases of enumerator falsification. Like 
the NRFU operation before it, NRFU-RI will use the Census Bureau's 
enumeration software on mobile devices (Census-owned, BYOD, and devices 
provided as a service). We will also test centralized phone contacts of 
reinterview cases before sending them to an enumerator in the field, 
providing potential cost savings.

Additional Followup Operations

    Understanding the accuracy of administrative records usage to 
identify vacant addresses and for the household composition of occupied 
housing units will inform decisions associated with the design of the 
2020 Census. The Census Bureau may conduct additional followup with 
cases to obtain the most accurate Census Day status of each housing 
unit. The intent is to revisit addresses where we find discrepancies 
between the NRFU results and administrative records information for the 
address. This mostly will include those addresses where information 
collected during NRFU conflicts with information we have from 
administrative records for that address.

Language Services

    Telephone questionnaire assistance will be available in languages 
other than English.

Focus Groups

    To evaluate the use of new contact strategies, enumeration methods, 
and efforts to reduce burden, the Census Bureau will conduct focus 
groups, comprised of various categories of respondents and non-
respondents. These focus groups are intended to gather information 
about respondent perspectives. Participants will be asked about their 
experiences with the 2016 Census Test, including but not limited to: 
Their reactions and thoughts about being contacted by the Census Bureau 
by alternative methods, the perceived legitimacy of these contacts; 
opinions about Bring Your Own Device; and their opinions on the use of 
administrative records by the Census Bureau. Participants will also be 
asked about their general concerns with government collection, cyber 
security, and protection of confidential data. At the end of the focus 
groups, we may be asking participants for whom we have acquired 
additional data from a commercial third party to verify whether this 
information is accurate.

III. Data

    OMB Control Number: 0607-XXXX.
    Form Number(s): Paper and electronic questionnaires; numbers to be 
determined.
    Type of Review: Regular submission.
    Affected Public: Households/Individuals.
    Estimated Number of Respondents: Self responders [Internet/
Telephone/Paper]: 250,000 respondents.
    Nonresponse Followup Cases: 120,000 respondents.
    Nonresponse Followup Quality Control Re-Interview Cases: 12,000 
respondents.
    Manual Non-ID Processing Cases requiring a phone call to the 
respondent: 400.
    Validation of Non-ID responses: 5000.
    Administrative Records Followup: 5000.
    Focus Groups:
    Focus Group Selection Contact: 288.
    Focus Groups: 160 participants.
    Total: 392,848 respondents.
    Estimated Time Per Response:
    Paper/Internet Responders: 10 minutes per response.
    Nonresponse Followup Cases: 10 minutes per response.
    Nonresponse Followup Quality Control Re-Interview Cases: 10 minutes 
per response.
    Non-ID Manual Processing Cases: 5 minutes.
    Non-ID Respondent Validation: 10 minutes per response.
    Administrative Records Followup: 10 minutes per response.
    Focus Groups:
    Focus Group Selection Contact: 3 minutes per response.
    Focus Groups: 120 minutes per response.
    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours:
    Self responders [Internet/Paper/Telephone]: 41,667 hours.
    Nonresponse Followup Cases: 20,000 hours.
    Nonresponse Followup Quality Control Re-Interview Cases: 2,000 
hours.
    Non-ID Manual Processing Cases: 33 hours.
    Non-ID Respondent Validation: 834 hours.
    Administrative Records Followup: 834 hours.
    Focus Groups:
    Focus Group Selection Contact: 16 hours.
    Focus Groups: 320 hours.
    Total: 65,704 hours.
    Estimated Total Annual Cost to Public: For the 2016 Census Test, 
respondents who are contacted by text message may incur charges 
depending on their plan with their service provider. The Census Bureau 
estimates that the total cost to respondents will be no more than 
$20,000. There are no other costs to respondents other than their time 
to participate in this data collection.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C. Sections 141 and 193.

IV. Request for Comments

    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 
(including hours and cost) 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.
    Comments submitted in response to this notice will be summarized 
and/or included in the request for OMB approval of this information 
collection; they also will become a matter of public record.

    Dated: July 29, 2015.
Glenna Mickelson,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2015-19005 Filed 8-3-15; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P