This section of the FEDERAL REGISTER

contains documents other than rules or

proposed rules that are applicable to the

public. Notices of hearings and investigations,

committee meetings, agency decisions and

rulings, delegations of authority, filing of

petitions and applications and agency

statements of organization and functions are

examples of documents appearing in this

section.

Notices Federal Register

783 

Vol. 83, No. 5 

Monday, January 8, 2018 

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE 

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. 

Agency: U.S. Census Bureau. 

Title: American Community Survey 

Methods Panel Tests, 2018 Data Slide 

Test. 

OMB Control Number: 0607–0936. 

Form Number(s): ACS–1, ACS CAPI, 

ACS internet. 

Type of Request: Non-substantive 

Change Request. 

Number of Respondents: 288,000. 

Average Hours Per Response: 40 

minutes. 

Burden Hours: No additional burden 

hours are requested under this nonsubstantive change request. 

Needs and Uses: 

The American Community Survey 

(ACS) collects detailed socioeconomic 

data from about 3.5 million housing 

units in the United States and 36,000 in 

Puerto Rico each year. The ACS also 

collects detailed socioeconomic data 

from about 195,000 residents living in 

Group Quarter (GQ) facilities. An 

ongoing data collection effort with an 

annual sample of this magnitude 

requires that the ACS continue research, 

testing, and evaluations aimed at 

reducing respondent burden, improving 

data quality, achieving survey cost 

efficiencies, and improving ACS 

questionnaire content and related data 

collection materials. The ACS Methods 

Panel is a research program designed to 

address and respond to issues and 

survey needs. 

Residents of sampled housing units 

are invited to self-respond to the ACS 

through a series of up to five mailings. 

Some respondents call the Census 

Bureau with questions or concerns 

about the survey after receiving the mail 

invitation. One common reason for 

calling is to verify that the ACS is a real 

survey. Respondents are hesitant to 

provide information about their 

household online or on a paper 

questionnaire without knowing that the 

survey is legitimate. Additionally, 

respondents want to understand how 

the data are used. To address these 

concerns, in addition to potentially 

improving the self-response rate, the 

Census Bureau seeks to test the 

inclusion of a data slide (also known as 

a slide chart) with the current ACS mail 

materials. The primary goals of the data 

slide are to help legitimize the survey 

and to present statistics of interest. The 

data slide could also potentially serve as 

a reminder to complete the survey. 

Promoting survey legitimacy and 

respondent trust may ultimately reduce 

respondent burden and increase selfresponse. The data slide will contain 

information on selected statistics from 

the ACS for each state, the District of 

Columbia, and Puerto Rico. 

Two experimental treatments are 

proposed. This test will involve the 

initial package (the first mailing) and 

the paper questionnaire package (the 

third mailing); some experimental cases 

will receive a data slide in the initial 

package and other experimental cases 

will receive it in the paper 

questionnaire package (if a response is 

not received prior to the third mailing). 

This test will study the impact on 

self-response and cost of including the 

data slide in the mail materials. To field 

this test, the Census Bureau plans to use 

the ACS production sample (clearance 

number: 0607–0810, expires 06/30/ 

2018). Thus, there is no increase in 

burden from this test since each 

treatment will result in the same burden 

estimate per interview (40 minutes). The 

ACS sample design consists of 

randomly assigning each monthly 

sample panel into 24 groups of 

approximately 12,000 addresses each. 

Each group, called a methods panel 

group, within a monthly sample is 

representative of the full monthly 

sample. Each monthly sample is a 

representative subsample of the entire 

annual sample and is representative of 

the sampling frame. 

The Census Bureau proposes to test 

the data slide as part of the ACS May 

2018 panel, adhering to the same data 

collection protocols as production ACS. 

The Census Bureau proposes to use two 

randomly selected methods panel 

groups for each treatment. Hence, each 

treatment will have a sample size of 

approximately 24,000 addresses. In 

total, approximately 48,000 addresses 

will be used for the two experimental 

treatments. Additionally, 24,000 

addresses will receive the current 

production mail materials, but will be 

sorted and mailed at the same time as 

the other treatment materials and serve 

as the control for statistical comparison. 

The remaining sample will receive 

production materials. 

The Census Bureau proposes to 

evaluate treatment comparisons by 

comparing self-response rates at various 

points in the mailing schedule and by 

comparing the final response rates. For 

each comparison a two-tailed test will 

be used so that the Census Bureau can 

measure the impact on the evaluation 

measure in either direction with 80 

percent power, at the a=0.1 level. The 

effective samples were calculated based 

on the previous year’s data for the May 

panel. The sample size will be able to 

detect differences of approximately 1.25 

percentage points between the selfresponse return rates of the control and 

experimental treatments. Additionally, a 

cost analysis will also be conducted. 

Affected Public: Individuals or 

households. 

Frequency: One-time test as part of 

the monthly American Community 

Survey. 

Respondent’s Obligation: Mandatory. 

Legal Authority: Title 13, United 

States Code, Sections 141, 193, and 221. 

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 

information collection should be sent 

within 30 days of publication of this 

notice to OIRA_Submission@

omb.eop.gov or fax to (202) 395–5806. 

Sheleen Dumas, 

Departmental PRA Lead, Office of the Chief 

Information Officer. 

[FR Doc. 2018–00085 Filed 1–5–18; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 3510–07–P 


sradovich on DSK3GMQ082PROD with NOTICES