Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request, 12702-12703 [E8-4635]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

[Federal Register Volume 73, Number 47 (Monday, March 10, 2008)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12702-12703]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E8-4635]


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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 (44 
U.S.C. chapter 35).
    Agency: U.S. Census Bureau.
    Title: Census Participation Survey.
    Form Number(s): None.
    OMB Control Number: None.
    Type of Request: New collection.
    Burden Hours: 1,667.
    Number of Respondents: 4,000.
    Average Hours per Response: 25 minutes.
    Needs and Uses: Every ten years, the U.S. Census Bureau is 
constitutionally and congressionally mandated, pursuant to Title 13 
U.S.C. Section 141, to count everyone (citizens and non-citizens) 
residing in the United States. An accurate count is critical for many 
reasons including but not limited to:
     Congressional reapportionment;
     Redistricting congressional boundaries;
     Community planning; and
     Distribution of public funds and program development.
    To facilitate the data collection effort for the 2010 Census, the 
Census Bureau is developing an Integrated Communications Plan (ICP). 
Toward that end, the Census Bureau has contracted with DraftFCB to 
develop and implement an integrated communications campaign for the 
2010 Census. DraftFCB had contracted with MACRO International, Inc. 
(who in turn has subcontracted with Human Resources Research 
Organization) to conduct a nationwide quantitative data collection to 
understand the barriers and motivators underlying participation (or 
lack thereof) in Census 2010. This data collection is critical to 
ensure the utility and effectiveness of the ICP.
    The role of the ICP is to increase public awareness and motivate 
people

[[Page 12703]]

to respond to the census promptly, saving millions of taxpayer dollars. 
The specific objectives of the ICP are:
     Increase mail response;
     Improve cooperation with enumerators; and
     Improve overall accuracy and reduce differential 
undercount.
    From 1970--the first year questionnaires were mailed to 
households--to 1990, the mail response rate declined from 78 percent to 
65 percent. To halt the declining mail response rate, the Census Bureau 
ran a paid advertising campaign to support data collection activities 
for the 2000 Census. This campaign was considered a very successful 
initiative and one of several reasons cited with helping to reverse 
declining mail response rates.
    The target mail response rate for the 2010 Census has been set at 
69 percent, higher than the 67 percent obtained in Census 2000. To 
support this goal, the ICP includes a communications campaign based on 
behavior during the 2000 Census and current knowledge, attitudes, 
perceptions, barriers, and motivations specific to 2010 Census 
participation.
    The Census Bureau is requesting clearance for DraftFCB's 
subcontractor, MACRO International, Inc. to conduct the Census 
Participation Survey to gain an in-depth understanding of the public's 
opinions about the 2010 Census. Collecting this information allows the 
Census Bureau to explore underlying factors contributing to public 
views of the 2010 Census; identify census related behavioral drivers 
and barriers; determine communication channels for reaching 
historically hard-to-count populations; and analyze messages they 
should convey to motivate the public to participate--potentially saving 
hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars used to collect the census 
data.
    The primary purpose of the Census Participation Survey is to inform 
tactical and strategic decisions for the ICP. This research is designed 
to complement previous participation research conducted for Census 2000 
as well as the Census Planning Database (a geographic summary file with 
Census 2000 response information) to inform the strategic direction of 
the 2010 Census Integrated Communications Plan (ICP). The data 
collected will not be used to produce official Census Bureau estimates 
of the population.
    When possible, respondents to the Census Participation Survey will 
be matched to the Census Planning Database (PDB) by tract number to 
link to Census 2000 census participation and hard-to-count data. In 
cases where a link to tract can be made, we will further roll cases 
back up into an eight-cluster segmentation scheme based on the PDB. The 
Census Participation Survey will make use of three different sampling 
frames described below:
    Address Frame: No address information is collected from the 
respondent. The selected addresses are sampled from the USPS's Delivery 
Sequence File (DSF) and geo-coded to link to census tract.
    RDD Landline Frame: No address information is collected from the 
respondent. Telephone numbers will be reverse matched to local 
telephone directories to identify as many addresses as possible. These 
addresses will be geo-coded to link to census tract. For those with no 
match (unlisted telephone numbers), we use the estimated census tract 
based on the telephone exchange and geographic associations.
    RDD Cell Phone Frame: For cell phone respondents, we cannot 
determine geographic location since cell phone area codes are not 
always geographically associated. Instead, we will rely on demographic 
data such as age, marital status, mobility, tenure, and whether the 
household is cell-phone only to assign interviews into segment.
    The combined data will be used to measure census awareness, 
attitudes, knowledge, and likelihood to respond to the census. This 
data will be used to further define the audience segmentation clusters 
to inform the communications strategy. Further, the data will be used 
to evaluate census messaging alternatives and analyze media consumption 
by audience segmentation.
    The Census Participation Survey also serves as a baseline measure 
of 2010 Census for monitoring change in awareness and intent to 
participate during the build-up and execution of Census 2010.
    Affected Public: Individuals or households.
    Frequency: One-time.
    Respondent's Obligation: Voluntary.
    Legal Authority: The legal authority under which this information 
is being collected is the general authority of the Census Bureau to 
undertake the decennial Census in 2010, Title 13 U.S.C. 141.
    OMB Desk Officer: Brian Harris-Kojetin, (202) 395-7314.
    Copies of the above information collection proposal can be obtained 
by calling or writing Diana Hynek, Departmental Paperwork Clearance 
Officer, (202) 482-0266, Department of Commerce, Room 6625, 14th and 
Constitution Avenue, NW., Washington, DC 20230 (or via the Internet at 
dHynek@doc.gov).
    Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information 
collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice 
to Brian Harris-Kojetin, OMB Desk Officer by fax (202-395-7245) or e-
mail (bharrisk@omb.eop.gov).

    Dated: March 5, 2008.
Gwellnar Banks,
Management Analyst, Office of the Chief Information Officer.
 [FR Doc. E8-4635 Filed 3-7-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-07-P