Department of Health and Human Services May 1, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In compliance with Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 concerning opportunity for public comment on proposed collection of information, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will publish periodic summaries of proposed projects to be submitted to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and approval. The proposed information collection was previously published in the Federal Register on February 21, 2007 (Volume 72, 34) page 7893-7894 and allowed 60 days for public comment. No public comments were received. The purpose of this notice is to allow an additional 30 days for public comment. The National Institutes of Health may not conduct or sponsor, and the respondent is not required to respond to, an information collection that has been extended, revised, or implemented on or after October 1, 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Proposed Collection: Title: Monitoring and Evaluation of the NIDA Goes Back to School National Dissemination Campaign. Type of Information Collection Request: NEW. Need and Use of Information Collection: This is a request for a one-time clearance to collect information on the use of the NIDA Goes Back to School (NGBTS) dissemination materials that can be requested by interested persons from the NIDA Internet site. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) launched an initiative to increase awareness of the Institute and its mission to bring the power of science to bear on the treatment and prevention of drug abuse and addiction. NIDA has been developing science education materials for grades K-12 for use by students, teachers, parents, school counselors, school health educators, school resources officers, community organizers, and state and local government agencies. The number of requestors has been an average of 7,500 per year. These large numbers indicate that the dissemination reach is considerable. The pattern of requests also indicates that the number of requests increases dramatically in the early weeks after a dissemination activity is launched. The purpose of this information collection is to determine the level of use by school personnel and community leaders who request the NGBTS materials, and if there is a difference in use level between those requestors responding to a campaign activity and those requestors who were not reached by campaign activities. The information will identify barriers to the use of the materials among these occupational groups and the populations they serve. It will help make the materials more productive in raising the awareness of the harms from substance abuse among children, youth, and parents. It will be used to refine the focus of the dissemination activities, so that dissemination resources are used more productively. The information will be collected from requestors who have requested NIDA NGBTS materials using the requestor forms from the NIDA site, from October 2003 to September 2005. All information collection in the evaluation will be conducted on-line. The estimated total time for a survey is 5 minutes. Prior to the monitoring and evaluation study, the information collection instruments will be pilot-tested via telephone interview format, with a sample of 8 individuals who have requested these materials during the chosen study years. The surveys will include the following elements: (1) Use of the NGBTS materials, (2) Opinion of the NGBTS materials, (3) Respondent information on gender, present occupation and its duration, (4) Background information on the school or Organization/Community. Frequency of Response: This project will be conducted once. Affected Public: School personnel, and Community Leaders who have requested the NGBTS materials. Type of Respondent: School personnel, and Community Leaders who have requested the NGBTS materials from the NIDA site. Estimated Total Annual Number of Respondents: 400. Estimated Number of Responses per Respondent: 1. Average Burden Hours per Response: .08. Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours Requested: 96.0. There are no Capital Costs to report. There are no Operating or Maintenance Costs to report. The estimated annualized burden is summarized below.

The NIEHS and NICEATM request public comments that can be considered by NICEATM, the Interagency Coordinating Committee on the Validation of Alternative Methods (ICCVAM), and relevant program offices on the draft NICEATM-ICCVAM 5-Year Plan. The draft plan addresses: (a) Research, development, translation, and validation of new and revised non-animal and other alternatives assays for integration of relevant and reliable methods into federal agency testing programs and (b) identification of areas of high priority for new and revised non-animal and alternative assays for the replacement, reduction, and refinement (less pain and distress) of animal tests. The draft plan will be available on or before May 7, 2007, at the NICEATM- ICCVAM 5-Year Plan Web site (https://iccvam.niehs.nih.gov/docs/ 5yearplan.htm). Copies of the draft plan may also be obtained by contacting NICEATM (see ADDRESSES below). NICEATM and ICCVAM will hold a public Town Meeting at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland on June 11, 2007, beginning at 1 p.m. to adjournment (~5 p.m.) to receive oral comments on the draft NICEATM-ICCVAM 5-Year Plan.

The inventions listed below are owned by an agency of the U.S. Government and are available for licensing in the U.S. in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 207 to achieve expeditious commercialization of results of federally-funded research and development. Foreign patent applications are filed on selected inventions to extend market coverage for companies and may also be available for licensing.

The Office on Women's Health (OWH) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is the Department's focal point for women's health issues, and works to address disparities in research, health care services, and education that negatively effect the health of women. The OWH coordinates women's health efforts within DHHS to eliminate disparities in health status and supports culturally sensitive educational programs that encourage women to take personal responsibility for their own health and wellness. To that end, OWH has established public/private partnerships to address critical women's health issues nationwide. These partnerships are with non-profit community-based, faith-based, and women's service organizations (CBOs, FBOs, WSOs) innovating intergenerational approaches for HIV/AIDS prevention education targeting women disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS across the lifespan. African American and Latino women constituted 25 percent of the U.S. female population in 2002, but 81.5 percent of the reported female AIDS cases (65 percent were among African Americans and 16.5 percent were among Hispanics). (1) The number of Asian/Pacific Islanders and American Indian/Alaskan Native women living with AIDS continues to rise, with an approximately 10 percent increase each year over the past 5 years. (2) Women disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS are vulnerable for the disease because they lack accurate information about the virus; have low to no condom negotiation skills; are faced with low socioeconomic circumstances; suffer from sexual abuse; struggle with violence and other traumas, and lack information and skills to share sexual health information with other female members in the family. To this end, the Intergenerational Approaches to HIV/AIDS Prevention Education with Women Across the Lifespan Pilot Program intends to: (1) Develop a cross-generational HIV/AIDS prevention education program to establish effective and/or increase communication about sexual health between African American, Native American/American Indian, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian/Pacific Islander women at risk for or living with HIV/AIDS with other female family and/or kinship network members 12+ years old; (2) provide opportunities for African American, Native American/American Indian, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian/Pacific Islander women and other female members of the family 12+ years old to know their serostatus; and 3) address the age-, gender-, cultural-, spiritual-, and language- specific needs of African American, Native American/American Indian, Hispanic/Latino, and Asian/Pacific Islander women and other female members of the family 12+ years old regarding their sexual health issues, particularly HIV/AIDS prevention so they may decrease their risks for disease. This program builds on Minority AIDS Initiative- and Office on Women's Health-funded Women and HIV/AIDS Programs (e.g., Model Mentorship Program; HIV Prevention Education for Young Women Attending Minority Academic Institutions) by addressing HIV/AIDS issues using the strength of familial and kinship networks, as well as women-specific vulnerabilities to acquiring the virus.

This proposed rule would set forth the hospice wage index for fiscal year 2008. This proposed rule would also revise the methodology for updating the wage index for rural areas without hospital wage data and provide clarification of selected existing Medicare hospice regulations and policies.