Notice2022-05937
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
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
March 21, 2022
Issuing agencies
Commerce DepartmentCensus Bureau
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 87 Issue 54 (Monday, March 21, 2022)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 87, Number 54 (Monday, March 21, 2022)]
[Notices]
[Pages 15909-15911]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[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.
[[Page 15910]]
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
<a href="http://www.reginfo.gov">www.reginfo.gov</a>. 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 <a href="http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</a>.
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
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