[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 54 (Monday, March 21, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 15909-15911]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2022-05937]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

Census Bureau


Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the 
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment 
Request; American Community Survey 2022 Content Test

    The Department of Commerce will submit the following information 
collection request to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for 
review and clearance in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 
1995, on or after the date of publication of this notice. We invite the 
general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and 
continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of 
our information collection requirements and minimize the public's 
reporting burden. Public comments were previously requested via the 
Federal Register on February 9, 2021, during a 60-day comment period. 
This notice allows for an additional 30 days for public comments.
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce.
    Title: American Community Survey 2022 Content Test.
    OMB Control Number: 0607-0936.
    Form Number(s): ACS-1, ACS CAPI, ACS internet.

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    Type of Request: Regular submission, Request for a Nonsubstantive 
Change of a Currently Approved Collection.
    Number of Respondents: 120,000 (initial interview); 58,800 (follow-
up interview).
    Average Hours per Response: 40 minutes (initial interview); 20 
minutes (follow-up).
    Total Burden Hours: 99,600 (80,000 initial interview; 19,600 
follow-up).
    Needs and Uses: Content testing is conducted by the Census Bureau 
periodically to improve data quality. The 2022 ACS Content Test will be 
a field test of new and revised content. Data from the test will help 
determine if the proposed wording produces data quality that is as good 
as or better than the existing questions. For new questions, the test 
will help determine if there are any data quality issues from the 
proposed question, or if two versions are being tested which one 
performs better. The results of this test will help determine which new 
or revised questions will be implemented in the ACS.
    The Census Bureau, in coordination with the Office of Management 
and Budget Interagency Committee for the ACS, solicited proposals for 
question changes or additions from over twenty Federal agencies. The 
following topics will be included in the field test: Household roster, 
educational attainment, health insurance coverage, disability, income, 
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and labor force 
questions. Additionally, three new questions will be tested on solar 
panels, electric vehicles, and sewage disposal. A summary of changes 
for each topic are as follows:
    Household Roster--The roster instructions have not changed since 
the 1990s while household living arrangements have increased in 
complexity. The revisions attempt to capture more complex living 
situations and improve within household coverage, especially among 
young children and tenuously attached residents.
    Educational Attainment--A relatively high percentage of respondents 
are selecting the response category, ``No schooling completed.'' 
Ongoing research suggests that this includes adults who have completed 
some level of schooling. The revision attempts to reduce the erroneous 
reports in this category through formatting and wording changes to 
clarify the response options.
    Health Insurance Coverage--The purpose of testing the revised 
health insurance question is to enhance question reliability and 
validity. Since implementation in 2008, research has found that 
Medicaid and other means-tested programs are underreported in the ACS 
and that direct-purchase coverage is overreported, in part due to 
misreporting of non-comprehensive health plans and reporting multiple 
coverage types for the same plan (Mach & O'Hara, 2011; Lynch et al., 
2011; Boudreaux et al., 2014; O'Hara, 2010; Boudreaux et al., 2011; 
Boudreaux et al., 2013). Moreover, revisions to the health insurance 
coverage question would help capture changes to the health insurance 
landscape that occurred with and since the passage of the Patient 
Protection and Affordable Care Act.
    Changes to the health insurance coverage question include the 
following: Reordering some response options and rewording response 
options for direct purchase, Medicaid, employer, and veteran's health 
care. A second version of the question will test these same changes 
along with a change to the format of the question that adds an explicit 
response category for those who are uninsured.
    Disability--The series of six disability questions are being 
revised to capture population information on functioning in a manner 
that reflects advances in the measurement of disability and is 
conceptually consistent the World Health Organization's International 
Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) disability 
framework (World Health Organization, 2001). Changes include using 
graded response categories to reflect the continuum of functional 
abilities (the current questions use a dichotomous yes/no response), 
reordering the questions, and modifying question text. Additionally, a 
new question being tested attempts to capture difficulties related to 
psychosocial and cognitive disability in addition to problems with 
speech.
    Income and SNAP--The Census Bureau is conducting research to 
determine the feasibility of using administrative sources as a 
replacement or supplement to the income questions currently fielded on 
the survey. Administrative data sources on employment, income, and 
public assistance benefits from the Internal Revenue Service, Social 
Security Administration, and state administrative offices could meet 
the agency needs for many types of income, transfer benefits, and 
employment data. If administrative data use in ACS production is 
implemented, it could provide far-reaching benefits for multiple ACS 
topics including income, SNAP, and employment.
    To better align with administrative data sources on many types of 
income and transfer benefits, we are testing a change in the reference 
period from the ``past 12 months'' to asking about the prior calendar 
year. Aside from the reference period change, overall instructions are 
being updated along with instructions for public assistance and 
retirement income, question wording is being changed for self-
employment, public assistance, and total income, and rental income is 
being collected separately from the interest question. Two versions of 
the income questions will be tested: One with a change in reference 
period and the question modifications and the other with only question 
modifications. The SNAP question will only test changes to the 
reference period, the question itself is not changing.
    Labor Force Questions--The changes proposed to the Labor Force 
question series are linked to the changes proposed to the Income series 
of questions, which change the reference period from ``during the past 
12 months'' to asking about the prior calendar year. Changing the 
reference period to the prior calendar year will allow the ACS to 
better align with administrative records, which, if used, could improve 
the quality of ACS estimates. In order to implement the change in 
reference period, an additional question is also added for respondents 
who have worked in the past five years. Aside from the change of 
reference period, changes to the question instructions will also be 
tested (in two formats).
    Electric Vehicles--This new question asks if there are plug-in 
electric vehicles kept at the housing unit. By adding this question, we 
will be able to project future energy sources, infrastructure, and 
consumer needs for the growing popularity of electric vehicles. The ACS 
would be the only data source at the housing unit level to adequately 
make these projections.
    Solar Panels--This new question asks if the housing unit uses solar 
panels that generate electricity. By adding this question, we will be 
able to obtain data for operational solar panels on a housing unit 
level across the country. This information will help the Energy 
Information Administration (EIA) match energy consumption to energy 
production across the United States.
    Sewage Disposal--This new question asks if the housing unit is 
connected to a public sewer, septic tank, or other type of sewage 
system. By adding this question, we will be able to obtain consistent 
data on the decentralized wastewater infrastructure status in rural and 
other communities. This is needed to protect public health, water 
quality, and to understand and meet the

[[Page 15911]]

country's growing infrastructure needs. The ACS is the only available 
survey that can provide these levels of data in a timely, consistent, 
and standardized manner.
    To evaluate the proposed changes, the 2022 Content Test will 
include a control and two experimental treatments. The Control 
Treatment will include the current ACS (production) version of the 
questions. New topics will also be included in this treatment. The Test 
Treatment will include the test question version for all topics except 
household roster. Because changes to within-household coverage can 
impact results of person-level questions, the household roster 
question(s) will be the current production version in order to avoid 
confounding. Changes to the roster question(s) will be tested in a 
separate treatment, called the Roster Treatment. Additionally, health 
insurance coverage, labor force, and income will include a second set 
of experimental questions to be tested in the Roster Treatment.
    Each topic will be evaluated using a variety of metrics, including 
item missing data rates, response distributions, comparisons to 
benchmarks and administrative data, response reliability, and other 
topic-specific metrics. Comparisons will be made between the Control 
Treatment and the experimental treatments. In some cases, the two 
experimental treatments will also be compared. Results of the test will 
inform decisions about changing content on the ACS.
    Affected Public: Individuals or households.
    Frequency: One-time test.
    Respondent's Obligation: Mandatory.
    Legal Authority: Title 13 U.S.C. Sections 141, 193, and 221.
    This information collection request may be viewed at 
www.reginfo.gov. Follow the instructions to view the Department of 
Commerce collections currently under review by OMB.
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of 
this notice on the following website www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. 
Find this particular information collection by selecting ``Currently 
under 30-day Review--Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search 
function and entering either the title of the collection or the OMB 
Control Number 0607-0936.

Sheleen Dumas,
Department PRA Clearance Officer, Office of the Chief Information 
Officer, Commerce Department.
[FR Doc. 2022-05937 Filed 3-18-22; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P