[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 158 (Thursday, August 17, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 39125-39127]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-17402]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

[60Day-17-1048; Docket No. CDC-2017-0056]


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.

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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: 
[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

[[Page 39126]]

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

[[Page 39127]]

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.

                                        Estimated Annualized Burden Hours
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                                                                                      Average
                                                     Number of       Number of      burden per     Total burden
      Type of respondents           Form name       respondents   responses  per   response  (in    (in hours)
                                                                     respondent       hours)
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School staff..................  Web-based                    245               1           25/60             102
                                 instrument for
                                 Broward County
                                 Public Schools.
School staff..................  Web-based                    245               1           25/60             102
                                 instrument for
                                 Los Angeles
                                 Unified School
                                 District.
School staff..................  Web-based                    245               1           25/60             102
                                 instrument for
                                 San Francisco
                                 Unified School
                                 District.
District-level Administrators.  School Climate                 2               1               1               2
                                 Index Interview
                                 Guide for
                                 District-level
                                 Administrators.
School-level Administrators...  School Climate                14               1               1              14
                                 Index Interview
                                 Guide for
                                 School-level
                                 Administrators.
School Staff..................  School Climate                28               1             1.5              42
                                 Index Interview
                                 Guide for
                                 School Staff.
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
    Total.....................  ................  ..............  ..............  ..............             364
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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. 2017-17402 Filed 8-16-17; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE P4163-18-P