2008 DR supporting Statement_Part A

2/5/2021

SUPPORTING STATEMENT

U.S. CENSUS BUREAU

2008 CENSUS DRESS REHEARSAL

Part A. Justification

1. Necessity of the Information Collection

The U.S. Census Bureau requests authorization from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to collect data from the public as part of the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal.

The 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal is the final opportunity for the Census Bureau to preview the operational design of the 2010 Census.

Census 2000 was an operational and data quality success. However, that success was achieved at great operational risk and great expense. In response to the lessons learned from Census 2000, and in striving to better meet our Nation’s ever-expanding needs for social, demographic, and geographic information, the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau have developed a multi-year effort to completely modernize and

re-engineer the 2010 Census of Population and Housing. This effort required an iterative series of tests in 2003, 2004, 2005 and in 2006, that provided an opportunity to evaluate new or improved question wording and questionnaire design, methodologies, and use of technology.

We conducted the 2003 Census Test, designed to evaluate alternative self-response options and alternative presentation of the race and Hispanic origin question; the 2004 Census Test, which studied new methods to improve coverage, including procedures for reducing duplication, and tested respondent reaction to revised race and Hispanic origin questions, examples, and instructions; the 2005 National Census Test, designed to evaluate variations of questionnaire content and methodology; and the 2006 Census Test, which relied on the results of the 2004 Census Test to expand on the number of new and refined methods. The 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal is the final step in the decennial cycle of research and development leading up to the implementation of the 2010 Census.

The 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal will integrate the various operations and procedures planned for the 2010 Census under as close to census-like conditions as possible. The results of this undertaking will be applied to the final plans for the 2010 Census operations where feasible.

Title 13, United States Code, Section 141 authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to conduct a decennial census of the population, and Section 193 authorizes the Secretary to conduct tests (such as the 2006 Census Test) to gather supplementary information related to the census.

2. Needs and Uses

The 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal will be conducted in two sites, one urban, and the other one, a mix of urban and suburban. San Joaquin County, California is the urban site. South Central North Carolina has been selected as the urban/suburban mix test site. This area consists of Fayetteville and nine counties surrounding Fayetteville (Chatham, Cumberland, Harnett, Hoke, Lee, Montgomery, Moore, Richmond and Scotland). The combination of a large urban site and a small city-suburban-rural site provides a comprehensive environment for demonstrating the planned 2010 Census methodology. These two sites, comprising of approximately 480,000 housing units, reflect characteristics that provide a good operational proof of concept of the planned 2010 Census operations, procedures, methods, and systems. Each site will have a Regional Office, which will guide and support the work of the temporary Local Census Offices in their jurisdiction.

Operations

The major enumeration activities for the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal will occur between February and July 2008. Prior to Census Day, April 1, 2008, the Census Bureau will mail out a bilingual (Spanish/English) advance letter alerting households that are in the test sites that the census form will be delivered soon by one of the following methods:

• Mailout/Mailback – Beginning March 17, 2008, the United States Postal Service (USPS) will deliver a questionnaire, along with a postage-paid return envelope. In certain tracts in the San Joaquin County site, the questionnaire will be in English, however, in other tracts, USPS will deliver a bilingual (Spanish/English) questionnaire. A blanket reminder postcard that serves as a thank you for respondents who have mailed back their questionnaire, or as a reminder for those who have not mailed one back, will be delivered March 24-28, 2008. Some areas in the test sites will receive a bilingual reminder postcard. An English-only replacement questionnaire will be mailed to all households that have not returned the questionnaire by April 6, 2008.

• Update/Leave – During the Update Leave (U/L) operation in the North Carolina site, which occurs March 3 – April 7, 2008, the census enumerators will deliver English-only questionnaires to non-city style housing units in their assignment areas (one or more census blocks). A non-city style address is a mailing address that does not use a house number and street or road name. This includes rural routes and highway contract routes, which may include a box number; post office boxes and drawers; and general delivery. The enumerators also will prepare and drop off English-only census questionnaires to any added housing units that they find in their assignment areas.

Additional operations will be used to ensure a complete enumeration. These operations will include Enumeration at Transitory Locations, Service Based Enumeration, Be Counted, Group Quarters Enumeration, Military Group Quarters Enumeration, Nonresponse Followup, and Nonresponse Followup Vacant Delete Check. Coverage operations also will be conducted during the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal for the purpose of measuring or improving coverage. Information collection requests for the Coverage Followup and Census Coverage Measurement operations will be submitted separately for OMB review and approval.

1. Nonresponse Followup – The Census Bureau will make every effort to secure a response from every resident and every housing unit. After the initial response period, the Census Bureau will identify the addresses in both sites for which a response has not been received. Using a handheld computer (HHC), the enumerator will visit and complete a census questionnaire for those addresses. The HHC instrument will be in the English and Spanish languages.

   • Nonresponse Followup Reinterview (NRFU RI) – As a quality check, an independent reinterview of a portion of an enumerator’s completed cases will be conducted during the NRFU operation.

B. Nonresponse Followup Vacant Delete Check – Following the completion of NRFU, the Nonresponse Followup Vacant Delete Check (NRFU VDC) operation will take place. This operation is an independent followup of addresses that are classified as vacant or nonexistent (deletes) during NRFU. During this operation, enumerators will make a personal visit to each NRFU VDC address in his or her assignment area to verify the housing unit’s status as vacant or nonexistent, and collect information about the resident(s) and the housing unit on their HHC whenever the status of the unit changes. The NRFU VDC cases will be assigned to a different enumerator than the one who made the original vacant or delete classification. This operation will utilize staff from both NRFU and NRFU RI, if possible.

C. Group Quarters Enumeration – The Census Bureau will implement a comprehensive set of procedures to enumerate individuals in group living situations (e.g. college residence halls, shelters for people experiencing homelessness, or military personnel living or staying in barracks or other group quarters on base).

• Group Quarters Advance Visit – Prior to the Group Quarters Enumeration (GQE) operation, the Census Bureau will conduct the Group Quarters Advance Visit (GQAV) operation. The purpose of GQAV is to inform the group quarters (GQ) point of contact of the upcoming GQ enumeration, address privacy and confidentiality concerns, and to identify any security issues. When GQAV begins, crew leaders will visit the GQ and meet with the designated contact person to verify the GQ name, address, contact name and phone number, and obtain an expected Census Day population count so that the correct amount of enumeration materials can be prepared.

• Group Quarters Enumeration – The GQE operation is designed to count people living or staying in places such as college residence halls, skilled nursing facilities, group homes, military barracks and correctional facilities. During this operation, census enumerators will visit the GQ, develop a control list of all residents and distribute an English language Individual Census Report (ICR) for completion. A Spanish language ICR will also be available for enumerators to use. Within a few days, the same enumerator will return to the GQ to retrieve the completed questionnaires. In order to obtain a complete count for everyone who uses the facility, the enumerator will ask the GQ contact to provide the census information for any missing questionnaires based on the control list prepared at the initial enumeration visit. At small GQs (usually nine residents or less), enumerators will conduct personal interviews to complete a questionnaire for each resident.

• Service Based Enumeration –Service Based Enumeration (SBE) is a group quarters operation designed to enumerate persons receiving services at shelters, soup kitchens, mobile food vans, and those staying at targeted non-sheltered outdoor locations. The SBE operation will occur over three days, and during those days, census staff and service providers will work together to determine the day of enumeration. Census enumerators will use the ICR to report respondent data.

• Military Group Quarters Enumeration - Military Group Quarters Enumeration is a GQE operation conducted on military bases and carried out in coordination with the military base point of contact (POC) to count military personnel living or staying in barracks or other group quarters on base. During Military Group Quarters Enumeration, designated base personnel distribute Military Census Reports (MCRs) to all military personnel assigned to the GQ. A few days later, Census Bureau staff will return to the base and collect the completed questionnaires, obtain census information for any missing cases, and provide the completed questionnaires to the local census office (LCO).

Military families living in housing units on base will be enumerated

using the mailout/mailback methodology.

4. Enumeration at Transitory Locations – The Enumeration at Transitory Locations (ETL) operation is where census workers conduct a personal interview at occupied units of locations such as hotels, motels, campgrounds, recreational vehicle parks, fairs, and marinas. During this operation, enumerators will visit these identified areas and complete census questionnaires for units with residents who have no other place of residence.

5. Questionnaire Assistance - Respondents will be able to call a toll-free telephone number printed on the questionnaire to obtain information about the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal. Census Bureau employees, including bilingual (Spanish/English) operators, at the call center will provide telephone questionnaire assistance by answering questions about the census questionnaire and about the dress rehearsal and provide fulfillment services for respondents who request an English-only replacement questionnaire, a bilingual (Spanish/English) questionnaire, a Chinese questionnaire, or a language assistance guide. The language assistance guides will depict the translation questions in the Spanish, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Vietnamese, Korean, and Cambodian languages.

5. Be Counted - Beginning in late March 2008, the Census Bureau will place unaddressed Be Counted forms in community locations and Walk-in Assistance Centers throughout the Dress Rehearsal sites for respondents to use to submit their census information. The Be Counted questionnaire will provide a means for people in the Dress Rehearsal sites to be included in the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal who may not have received a census questionnaire or believe they were not included elsewhere. The Census Bureau intends to make these forms available in the English, Spanish and Chinese languages at the Questionnaire Assistance Centers.

Information quality is an integral part of the pre-dissemination review of the information disseminated by the Census Bureau (fully described in the Census Bureau's Information Quality Guidelines). Information quality is also integral to the information collections conducted by the Census Bureau and is incorporated into the clearance process required by the Paperwork Reduction Act.

3. Use of Information Technology

Previous censuses have relied almost exclusively on paper questionnaires. However, for the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal, all of the NRFU and the NRFU VDC responses will be collected electronically using HHCs. The HHCs also will be used to collect and transmit addresses and geocodes for added units, and NRFU and NRFU VDC field workers time and mileage information.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

To our knowledge, this effort does not duplicate information collected by any other agency.

5. Minimizing Burden

In order to minimize the burden in the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal, we will attempt to obtain the required information from only one person in each household. In addition, we plan to use the HHCs to remove late mail returns from the NRFU workload daily, so that enumerators do not ask respondents to provide the same information again. Using the HHC, the enumerator can transmit completed cases to the Operations Control System. We estimate the response time for the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal housing unit questionnaires to be approximately 10 minutes, and approximately five minutes for the ICR questionnaires.

6. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection

The proposed 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal is a one-time effort. It is our final opportunity to test the various systems, interfaces and operations that will be used for the 2010 Census. Without this opportunity, the risks for operational failure and significant cost increases for the 2010 Census are great. Ultimately, this could negatively affect the quality and completeness of the 2010 Census.

7. Special Circumstances

No special circumstances exist.

8. Consultations Outside the Agency

The Census Bureau published a notice in the Federal Register in order to inform the public of our intent to conduct the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal. See Federal Register: January 30, 2007 (Volume 72, 4232-4235). We received one comment on the Federal Register Notice, which we deemed irrelevant to the operation. We have traditionally consulted with a variety of data users, including, but not limited to, academicians, national researchers, community leaders, and our Advisory Committees. Many members of these committees are well-known scholars and social or political activists, and are respected as spokespersons for their communities and organizations. Both now and in the past, we have followed up on advice obtained through this ongoing consultation process. In addition to the committees cited above, the Census Bureau has consulted with outside experts, including members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

9. Paying Respondents

Respondents participating in this survey will not receive any form of compensation for their participation.

10. Assurances of Confidentiality

Each component of the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal respondent mailings and communications explains that participation is required by law, Title 13, United States Code, and includes the Census Bureau’s assurance that the personal information requested will be treated as confidential, as required by the same law.

Each household that we contact during NRFU and ETL will receive a Privacy Act Notice -- Form DX-31(P). All residents and clients of GQs, where we conduct an enumeration also will receive a copy of this notice. The notice explains that participants are required to respond. It includes the Census Bureau’s assurance that all information that could identify individuals will be held in the strictest confidence under applicable federal statues. Respondents also are told that their information only will be used for statistical purposes, and they are informed that Census Bureau employees are subject to fines or jail sentences if they violate their oath to protect respondents’ confidentiality. This information also is included on the paper questionnaires or in the letters that respondents receive.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

The Census Bureau perceives no question as sensitive.

12. Estimate of Hour Burden

The respondent universe consists of approximately 230,000 housing units in the San Joaquin County, CA site and 335,000 housing units in the South Central, NC site. To calculate the burden hours, we assume a theoretical 100 percent response rate. The household forms (including NRFU enumerations) will each take approximately 10 minutes to complete. Based on the results from cognitive studies, we estimate that the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal ICR questionnaires for SBE and GQE will take approximately five minutes to complete. In order to minimize the burden in the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal, we will attempt to obtain the required information from only one person in each household. We also plan to use the HHCs to update the NRFU workload daily to remove late mail returns so that respondents are not asked to provide the same information more than once.

In addition to the original interviews, approximately five percent of households in the NRFU universe will be reinterviewed as part of our procedures for quality control.

Entity	Responses	Estimated Time for Response	Total Burden Hours
Total household units	565,000	10 minutes	94,167
NRFU (285,000) and NRFU VDC (50,000) workload	335,000	10 minutes	Included in above
NRFU RI (5 % of NRFU workload	14,250	10 minutes	2,375
Group Quarters workload	59,502	5 minutes	4,959
Total	973,752		101,501

13. Estimate of Cost Burden

There is no cost to respondents, except for the time it takes to respond to the questions.

14. Cost to the Federal Government

The estimated cost for the actual implementation and evaluation of the 2008 Census Dress Rehearsal is approximately $50,0117,443; spread over three fiscal years (FY 2007 through FY 2009). An inter-divisional Census Bureau team developed the data collection methodologies and planned the test, and the Census Bureau’s Decennial Management Division allocated the resources for the test.

15. Reason for Change in Burden

This is a reinstatement of a previously approved collection.

16. Project Schedule

These dates are tentative.

Activity	Schedule
	Planned/ Actual Start	Planned Finish
Conduct Group Quarters Advance Visit	2/4/08	3/21/08
Conduct Questionnaire Assistance	2/27/08	6/4/08
Conduct Update Leave	3/3/08	4/7/08
USPS delivers mailout/mailback advance letters to housing units	3/10/08	3/12/08
USPS delivers mailout/mailback questionnaire packages	3/17/08	3/19/08
Conduct Enumeration at Transitory Locations (ETL)	3/17/08	4/18/08
USPS delivers reminder cards to housing units	3/24/08	3/26/08
Conduct Service Based Enumeration (SBE)	3/26/08	3/28/08
Make Be Counted forms available	3/31/08	4/18/08
Census Day	4/1/08
Conduct Group Quarters Enumeration and Military Group Quarters Enumeration	4/1/08	5/16/08
USPS delivers replacement mailout/mailback questionnaire packages	4/9/08	4/18/08
Conduct Nonresponse Follwoup and Nonresponse Follwoup Reinterview	4/21/08	7/12/08
Conduct Nonresponse Follwoup Vacant Delete Check	7/16/08	8/15/08

17. Request to Not Display Expiration Date

No exemption is requested.

18. Exceptions to the Certification

There are no exceptions to the certification.

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