82 FR 126 - Proposed Data Collection Submitted for Public Comment and Recommendations

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

Federal Register Volume 82, Issue 1 (January 3, 2017)

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), as part of its continuing efforts 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 request titled ``APPLETREE Performance Measures.'' Under the APPLETREE cooperative agreement program (Funding Opportunity Announcement No. CDC-RFA-TS17-1701), awardees will be required to submit an Annual Plan of Work (APOW), several standardized outcome and performance measures, and an Annual Performance Report (APR).

[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 3, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 126-128]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-31773]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry

[60Day-17-17IV; Docket No. ATSDR-2016-0008]


Proposed Data Collection Submitted for Public Comment and 
Recommendations

AGENCY: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), 
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

ACTION: Notice with comment period.

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SUMMARY: The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), 
as part of its continuing efforts 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 request titled ``APPLETREE Performance Measures.'' Under the 
APPLETREE cooperative agreement program (Funding Opportunity 
Announcement No. CDC-RFA-TS17-1701), awardees will be required to 
submit an Annual Plan of Work (APOW), several standardized outcome and 
performance measures, and an Annual Performance Report (APR).

DATES: Written comments must be received on or before March 6, 2017.

ADDRESSES: You may submit comments, identified by Docket No. ATSDR-
2016-0008 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 the Information Collection Review Office, 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1600 Clifton Road NE., MS-
D74, Atlanta, Georgia 30329; phone: 404-639-7570; Email: [email protected].

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

    APPLETREE Performance Measures--New--Agency for Toxic Substances 
and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

[[Page 127]]

Background and Brief Description

    The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) serves 
the public through responsive public health actions to promote healthy 
and safe environments and to prevent harmful exposures in communities 
across the nation. ATSDR's Partnership to Promote Local Efforts to 
Reduce Environmental Exposure (APPLETREE) Program is critical to 
ATSDR's success in this mission. The purpose of the program is to: (1) 
Identify pathways of exposure to hazardous substances at hazardous 
waste sites and releases; (2) identify, implement, and coordinate 
public health interventions to reduce exposures to hazardous substances 
which occur at levels of health concern; and (3) provide training at 
the state level to promote and achieve the safe siting of child care 
facilities in the United States. The APPLETREE Program is also a 
mechanism which enhances ATSDR's communication with state, local, and 
federal health and environmental agencies. This program is authorized 
under Sections 104(i)(15) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, 
Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) of 1980, as amended by the 
Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act (SARA) of 1986 [42 U.S.C. 
9604(i)(15)].
    Under the new three-year APPLETREE cooperative agreement (Funding 
Opportunity Announcement No. CDC-RFA-TS17-1701), eligible applicants 
include federally recognized American Indian/Alaska Native tribal 
governments; American Indian/Alaska native tribally designated 
organizations; political subdivisions of states (in consultation with 
states); and state and local governments or their bona fide agents. 
ATSDR technical project officers (TPOs) will assist approximately 25 
APPLETREE awardees to address site-specific issues involving human 
exposure to hazardous substances. Key capacities include identification 
of human exposure pathways at ATSDR sites, education of affected 
communities and local health professionals about site contamination and 
potential health effects; making appropriate recommendations to prevent 
exposure; reviewing health outcome data to evaluate potential links 
between site contaminants and community health; and documenting the 
effects of environmental remediation on health.
    ATSDR will collect information related to awardee activities, and 
the process and outcome performance measures outlined by the 
cooperative agreement program. Information will be used to monitor 
progress toward program goals and objectives, and for quality 
improvement.
    Annual Plan of Work (APOW): Each budget year, awardees shall 
deliver an APOW. The APOW will include awardee workplans for site-
specific activities, environmental health assessment outputs, and 
overarching milestones for child care safe siting activities. The 
estimated annual time burden to prepare and report the APOW is eight 
hours per awardee.
    ATSDR Health Education Activity Tracking (HEAT) Performance 
Measure: For each environmental health assessment and health education 
activity conducted at ATSDR sites, APPLETREE awardees shall 
quantitatively assess and report efforts to educate community members 
about site recommendations and health risks using indicators to assess 
community understanding of site findings about health risks and 
community understanding of agency recommendations to reduce health 
risks. This information will be entered in to the ATSDR HEAT system for 
each activity at ATSDR sites. Based on past experience, ATSDR assumes a 
maximum of 925 activities will be entered into the HEAT database each 
year; therefore, each of the 25 awardees will enter an average of 37 
activities into the HEAT database.
    ATSDR Site Impact Assessment (SIA) Performance Measure: For each 
environmental health assessment and health education activity conducted 
at ATSDR sites, awardees shall estimate and report the number of people 
protected from exposure to toxic substances at each site where 
implementation of agency recommendations has taken place and at each 
child care center where safe siting guidelines have been implemented. 
To the extent possible, awardees shall estimate the disease burden 
prevented due to the implementation of site recommendations and safe 
siting guidelines. This information will be entered into the ATSDR SIA 
database by the awardee. ATSDR assumes a maximum of 150 ATSDR sites 
will undergo an environmental assessment, or an average of 6 sites per 
awardee, per year.
    APPLETREE Annual Performance Report (APR): Awardees must provide an 
APR at the end of each budget year. The report must include a minimum 
of three site activity success stories; a synopsis of the number of 
people involved in environmental health assessments at sites, the 
number of public health recommendations accepted, the number of health 
education activities conducted at sites; and the outcomes achieved 
during the budget year. The APR must also demonstrate annual progress 
in implementing child care safe siting policies in their jurisdictions 
over the three-year program period. ATSDR assumes that ASARs will take 
15 burden hours for each awardee to prepare.
    ATSDR seeks to request a three-year clearance from OMB to collect 
the necessary information for this project.
    The awardee reporting is a requirement of the APPLETREE cooperative 
agreement. The total annual time burden requested is 635 hours.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                     Number of        Average
                                                     Number of     responses per    burden per     Total burden
      Type of respondents           Form name       respondents   respondent per   response  (in    (in hours)
                                                     per year          year           hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPLETREE Awardees............  Annual Plan of                25               1               8             200
                                 Work (APOW).
                                ATSDR Health                  25              37            3/60              47
                                 Education
                                 Activity
                                 Tracking (HEAT)
                                 Form.
                                ATSDR Site                    25               6            5/60              13
                                 Impact
                                 Assessment
                                 (SIA) Form.
                                APPLETREE Annual              25               1              15             375
                                 Performance
                                 Report (APR).
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.....................  ................  ..............  ..............  ..............             635
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[[Page 128]]

Leroy A. Richardson,
Chief, Information Collection Review Office, Office of Scientific 
Integrity, Office of the Associate Director for Science, Office of the 
Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
[FR Doc. 2016-31773 Filed 12-30-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4163-18-P