80 FR 52735 - Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Census Bureau

Federal Register Volume 80, Issue 169 (September 1, 2015)

[Federal Register Volume 80, Number 169 (Tuesday, September 1, 2015)]
[Notices]
[Pages 52735-52737]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2015-21566]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Census Bureau


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    The Department of Commerce will submit to the Office of Management 
and Budget (OMB) for clearance the following proposal for collection of 
information under the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 
U.S.C. chapter 35).
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau, Commerce.
    Title: Federal Statistical System Public Opinion Survey.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-0969.
    Form Number(s): None.
    Type of Request: Regular submission.
    Number of Respondents: 44,200.
    Average Hours per Response: 0.1666667.
    Burden Hours: 7367.
    Needs and Uses: These public opinion data will enable the Census 
Bureau to better understand public perceptions of federal statistical 
agencies and their products, which will provide guidance for 
communicating with the public and for future planning of data 
collection that reflects a good understanding of public perceptions

[[Page 52736]]

and concerns. Because all federal statistical agencies are also facing 
these issues of declining response rates and increasing costs in a time 
of constrained budgets, the Census Bureau will share the results of 
these surveys with other federal statistical agencies, to maximize the 
utility of this information collection and ultimately, the quality and 
efficiency of federal statistics. Specifically, other federal 
statistical agencies have expressed interest in continuing this data 
collection for use in communications strategies within their own 
agencies.
    The Census Bureau plans to add 7 questions to a sample of cases in 
the Gallup Daily Tracking, which is an ongoing daily survey asking U.S. 
adults about various political, economic, and well-being topics. The 
initial 7 questions will allow us to continue the time series begun 
under the previous study and to add open-ended questions, which will 
allow us to measure change in the basis of attitudes. The additional 
questions will allow us to investigate other issues that could be 
related to trust and other perceptions of the FSS.
    The survey methodology for the planned collection is the same as 
the past collection. It includes sample coverage of the entire United 
States, including Alaska and Hawaii, and relies on a three-call design 
to reach respondents not contacted on the initial attempt. The survey 
methods for the Gallup Daily Tracking rely on live interviews, dual-
frame sampling (which includes listed landline interviewing as well as 
cell phone sampling to reach those in cell phone-only households, cell 
phone-mostly households, and unlisted landline-only households), and a 
random selection method for choosing respondents within the household. 
The Census Bureau will ask questions of 850 respondents a week who 
participate in the Gallup Daily Tracking through October 31, 2019 via a 
contract that has a base year and four options years.
    Up to 20 additional pulse questions can be added to the nightly 
survey for a total of 100 days per year. These ``pulse'' questions will 
be used for several distinct purposes.
    First, additional questions can be added to and removed from the 
initial set of 7 questions in a series of question ``rotations''. 
Rotations will be planned to explore public opinion of different 
aspects of statistical uses of administrative records. Topics for the 
additional questions will including knowledge about administrative 
records use, public perception of the quality of such records, public 
perception of privacy and confidentiality implications of such use, and 
differentiation between types of administrative records and types of 
statistical uses. These rotations might include introducing or framing 
the questions differently, varying the types of records mentioned and 
the methods of use in the question, willingness-to-pay/stated 
preference questions, and so on. These types of questions would add up 
to 5 questions in the nightly interview and would be fielded for a 
limited amount of time surrounding the particular event. These 
questions will be submitted to OMB by way of update to this submission.
    Second, rotating questions will be used to explore awareness of 
other statistics or other statistical agencies not mentioned in the 
core questions. For example, we may ask additional questions to explore 
awareness of specific types of statistics, like health statistics, or 
agricultural statistics. These types of questions would add up to 3 
questions in the nightly interview and would be fielded for a limited 
amount of time. These questions will also be submitted to OMB by way of 
update to this submission.
    Third, rotating questions will be used to explore opinions towards 
initiatives, like Bring Your Own Device, that the Census Bureau and 
other federal statistical agencies are considering adopting. These 
types of questions would add up to 3 questions in the nightly interview 
and would be fielded for a limited amount of time. These questions will 
also be submitted to OMB by way of update to this submission.
    Fourth, rotating questions will be used for communications, public 
relations and similar message testing. Examples of such messages would 
be different ways of describing confidentiality or privacy protection, 
or different ways of encouraging response to a survey. These types of 
questions would add up to 5 questions in the nightly interview and 
would be fielded for a limited amount of time surrounding the 
particular event. These questions will also be submitted to OMB by way 
of update to this submission (specified in more detail below). In 
general, they would ask things like awareness of the event, and 
opinions about the relationship (if any) between those events and the 
federal statistical system.
    Finally, we may wish to add rotating questions very quickly after 
an unanticipated event to gage awareness of those events and opinions 
about the relationship (if any) between those events and the federal 
statistical system. These could be events like a data breach (public or 
private sector), political scandal, or any other unanticipated news 
event that may alter public perceptions. Gallup can add questions with 
as little as 48 hours notice. Up to 3 additional questions could be 
fielded in the nightly interview for a limited amount of time 
surrounding the particular event. These questions would be submitted to 
OMB for a quick-turn-around approval and would be very limited in scope 
to address the particular unanticipated event.
    OMB and the Census Bureau have agreed that these rotating questions 
constitute nonsubstantive changes to this submission. OMB will be 
informed approximately monthly of the intent to make these changes 
through a single tracking document. This document will contain a 
complete history of all questions asked and the months that each 
question was asked.
    Although the Gallup Daily Tracking Survey is portrayed by Gallup as 
being nationally representative, it does not meet Census Bureau quality 
standards for dissemination and is not intended for use as precise 
national estimates or distribution as a Census Bureau data product. The 
Census Bureau will use the results from this survey to monitor 
awareness and attitudes, as an indicator of the impact of potential 
negative events, and as an indicator of potential changes in awareness 
activities. Although the response rate to the survey is insufficiently 
high to be used for point estimation, the results are expected to 
provide useful information for describing general trends and for 
modeling opinions. Data from the research will be included in research 
reports with clear statements about the limitations and that the data 
were produced for strategic and tactical decision-making and 
exploratory research and not for official estimates. Research results 
may be prepared for presentation at professional meetings or in 
publications in professional journals to promote discussion among the 
larger survey and statistical community, encourage further research and 
refinement. Again, all presentations or publications will provide clear 
descriptions of the methodology and its limitations.
    Affected Public: Individuals and Households.
    Frequency: Ongoing.
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.

    Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C. Chapter 5 Sections 141 and 193.

    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view Department of Commerce 
collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed

[[Page 52737]]

information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of 
this notice to [email protected] or fax to (202) 395-5806.

    Dated: August 26, 2015.
Glenna Mickelson,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
[FR Doc. 2015-21566 Filed 8-31-15; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-07-P