0990-Parent communication_wadolescent_Study_10 1 10 revised Part A

This document provides a Supporting Statement to accompany a request for approval to collect information for an 18 month study for the Evaluation of the Parent Communication Campaign Focus Groups with Adolescents.

A. Justification

This section provides detailed justification for the request for approval to collect information for the Evaluation of the Parent Communication Campaign: Focus Groups with Adolescents.

A.1 Need and Legal Basis

This program is authorized by Section 301(a) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 241(a), as amended). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) launched the Parent Communication Campaign in June 2007. This national public education campaign is designed to encourage parents of pre-teens and teens to talk to their children early and often about waiting to have sex. Funds for the Parent Communication Campaign are made available under the authority provided in the DHHS Annual Appropriations Bill (P.L. 110-161, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008, and P.L. 110-329, Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009). The campaign includes public service announcement (PSA)-type spots and print advertisements, as well as a Web site. This Web site provides information to parents of pre-teens and teens on sex, sexual development, and parenting; it also provides some information for teens. The campaign’s primary target audience is parents of pre-adolescent and adolescent children.

In an earlier phase of the evaluation, focus groups were conducted with parents of adolescents to better understand the factors that affect their communication with their children about sex, and to get their reactions to the first advertisement developed by the campaign. OMB clearance was received for those focus groups (OMB control #0990-0314). For this phase of the evaluation, we will conduct online bulletin board focus groups with adolescents themselves to obtain their perspectives on the issue. The focus groups with adolescents will also provide in-depth, qualitative information that will aid in the interpretation of a survey of adolescents that is also being conducted as part of the overall Parent Communication Campaign evaluation (OMB control # 0990-0325). The survey asks adolescents a range of questions about parent-child communication about sex and factors that may influence that communication. The focus groups will explore these same issues in an open-ended, qualitative format, that will allow us to explore these questions in greater depth. A total of 8 focus groups with adolescents between the ages of 13 and 15 will be conducted—four with adolescent males and four with adolescent females. The sample will be drawn from across the United States, and will be stratified to ensure racial, ethnic, and socio-economic diversity in each group (black, white, and Hispanic adolescents will each comprise no less than 25% of each group, and adolescents whose parents have less than a college education will also comprise no less than 25% of each group). We will also ask participants to complete a brief questionnaire with questions about basic socio-demographics and sources of sex education. This questionnaire will allow us describe the sample and to make comparisons by gender and race/ethnicity, as well as to provide quantitative estimates of the prevalence in the sample of some of the focus group findings. Prior to conducting the focus groups, we will test our data collection procedures with a smaller group of adolescents (one group of approximately 8 adolescents) to identify any modifications that may need to be made.

The study is designed to help evaluate the Parent Communication Campaign by learning qualitatively what kinds of information about sex adolescents want to hear from their parents and their perspectives on the factors that either hinder or facilitate effective communication. Key research questions for exploration in the focus groups are presented in Exhibit 1.

Exhibit 1. Research Questions

What information about sex do adolescents want to hear from their parents?
What factors either facilitate or hinder parent-child communication about sex?
What differences are there in adolescents’ perspectives on parent-child communication about sex with their mothers vs. with their fathers?

A.2 Information Users

The information obtained from the proposed data collection activities will inform the Office of Public Health and Science (OPHS), policy makers, parents, prevention practitioners, and researchers about adolescents’ perspectives on parent-child communication about sex, which will help to guide the design of effective campaign messages. It will also help the evaluation staff to interpret the quantitative results of the evaluation (conducted via surveys) under OMB control number #0990-0325—e.g., possible reasons for adolescents’ responses to survey questions may be suggested by the more in-depth information obtained in the focus groups.

A.3 Improved Information Technology

Both the brief questionnaires and the focus groups will be administered online. An alternative approach to the data collection would have been to conduct face-to-face focus groups, but the use of the online technology minimizes the burden to participants. Instead of having to travel to a focus group location at a time determined by the researchers, participants will be able to log on to the bulletin board focus groups at any time during the day that is convenient to them, and respond to the questions without leaving their homes.

To conduct these bulletin board focus groups, RTI will be contracting with Itracks, a leading provider of online focus groups, for use of their online research applications and logistical support.

A.4 Duplication of Similar Information

The Parent Communication Campaign is a new multi-media campaign. To date, the evaluation of the Parent Communication Campaign has not qualitatively assessed adolescents’ perspectives on issues related to parent-child communication about sex. The focus groups with adolescents therefore do not duplicate previous efforts.

In designing the proposed data collection activities, we have taken several steps to ensure that this effort does not duplicate ongoing efforts and that no existing data sets would address the proposed study questions. To ensure that this study is forging new ground in our understanding of adolescents’ perspectives on issues related to parent-child communication about sex, we conducted an extensive review of the literature by examining several large periodical journal databases. We identified published articles or books containing the keywords, “adolescent,” “youth,” “abstinence,” “parent-child communication,” and “qualitative.” In addition to reviewing published information, we searched for “gray” literature by contacting well-known researchers in the field and by exploring the Internet. The results of the literature search and consultation with experts in the field revealed that although a fair amount of research has been conducted on parent-child communication about sex, little qualitative research about parent-child communication has been conducted with adolescents. Moreover, the research that has been conducted has used limited samples, such as one racial or ethnic group, or one geographic area. This data collection will allow for a much more comprehensive assessment, as it will include blacks, whites, and Hispanics from across the country. To date, no duplication of the proposed effort has been identified.

A.5 Small Businesses

No small business will be directly involved in the collection of data in this study.

A.6 Less Frequent Collection

While the study should be approved for an 18 month period of time, the actual data will be collected one time only, in early 20110. The data collected will complement survey data collected from RTI’s quantitative study of the efficacy of the Parent Communication Campaign (OMB control #0990-0311). The findings from this study will yield qualitative information on the factors that may influence the effectiveness of the Parent Communication Campaign. If this study were not conducted, it would be difficult to determine the reasons why this national campaign may or may not be efficacious at encouraging and helping parents to talk to their pre-teens and teens about waiting to have sex. Failure to collect these data could reduce effective use of program resources to benefit parents and children.

After consulting with OPHS, it was determined that this one-time data collection strategy would be sufficient to document information on the factors that may influence the effectiveness of the Parent Communication Campaign.

There are no legal obstacles to reduce the burden. To our knowledge, this information collection and resulting evaluation data will only affect those households who are screened for and recruited into the study. No other public individuals or households in the private sector, state, local, or tribal governments, or public individuals in the Federal Government will be affected.

A.7 Special Circumstances

There are no special circumstances that require data collection to be conducted in a manner inconsistent with 5 CRF 1320.5 (d)(2).

A.8 Federal Register Notice/Outside Consultation

A 60-day Federal Register Notice was published in the Federal Register on November 20, 2009, in Volume 74, Number 223, pages 60263-60264 and provided a 60-day period for public comments. No public comments were received.

In 2008, RTI met with OPHS representatives and the media contractor to learn about plans for implementation of the Parent Communication Campaign media in 2009 and beyond. These discussions provided RTI with information about specific media schedules, television advertising strategies, specific ads, and other pertinent details to the national media campaign. In addition, in June and July of 2009, RTI consulted extensively with Itracks, the organization subcontracted to manage the recruitment and provide the technological support for the online focus groups. Based on their extensive experience with online approaches to qualitative research, Itracks provided information that guided the development of RTI’s recruitment strategy and study design.

A.9 Payment/Gift to Respondents

Itracks will give a $40 425 incentive to adolescents who participate in the focus group discussions. Based on Itracks’ experience, a smaller incentive would not appear sufficiently attractive to many adolescents to motivate their participation in the study for up to 120 minutes each. Numerous empirical studies have shown that incentives can significantly increase response rates (e.g., Abreu & Winters, 1999; Shettle & Mooney, 1999). The use of modest incentives is expected to enhance participation in focus groups without biasing responses or coercing respondents to participate. We also believe that the incentive will result in higher data validity, since it will motivate adolescents to be more engaged in the focus group process.

A.10 Confidentiality

All procedures have been developed, in accordance with federal, state, and local guidelines, to ensure that the rights and privacy of study participants are protected. The RTI Institutional Review Board (IRB) reviewed all instruments, informed consent materials, and procedures to ensure that the rights of individuals participating in the study are safeguarded. All data collection procedures were approved by the RTI IRB (IRB Approval # 11587). A pilot test of these procedures was conducted, and no substantive changes were made to data collection protocols based on the pilot (see Section B.4 for a summary of the pilot test).

RTI will not collect any identifying information for respondents, and all respondents will be assured that the information they provide will be treated in a confidential manner, unless otherwise compelled by law. Please refer to the assurances of confidentiality and study descriptions that are included in this submission (informed consent for parents and informed assent for adolescents). A parent or guardian of each participating adolescent will be asked to read and sign an informed consent form, indicating their consent for their child to participate in the study. Each participating adolescent will then be asked to read and sign an informed assent form, indicating their assent to participate. In face-to-face focus groups, there is always a risk the other focus groups participants will reveal confidential information discussed during the focus group. Because this data collection is using online focus groups, however, this risk is avoided, as participants will not meet face-to-face and will have no means to identify each other. RTI staff will assure respondents that their names will not be associated with responses provided. Respondents will be told that the information obtained from the focus groups will be combined into a summary report so that details of individual responses cannot be linked to a specific participant.

To ensure data security, all Itracks and RTI project staff are required to adhere to strict standards and to sign a statement of confidentiality as a condition of employment on this project. Itracks will keep an electronic list of invited respondents in order to make a reminder call to all respondents. Only the project manager and the project coordinator at Itracks will have access to this information. Names of participants will be used solely to facilitate contact, callbacks and issuance of incentive payments. Respondents will be assigned alpha-numeric identifiers to separate names from the responses provided. Itracks will keep a master list of names in a password-protected computer file, and any hard-copy records with the respondent’s name will be kept in a locked cabinet with access limited to the project manager and the project coordinator. After the study is completed, the master list will be destroyed.

RTI maintains restricted access to all data preparation areas (i.e., receipt, coding, and data entry). All data files on multi-user systems will be under the control of a database manager, with access limited to project staff on a “need-to-know” basis only. No names or other respondent identifiers will be contained in any reports.

A.11 Sensitive Questions

The objective of the Parent Communication Campaign is to promote parent-child communication about sex. Questions in the focus groups are not expected to be sensitive, because they focus on parent-child communication about sex and do not ask about any actual sexual attitudes or behaviors. The questions focus on issues such as what information related to sex parents give their adolescent children, what kinds of information adolescents would like to hear from their parents, and what the barriers are to communication. Specific questions are shown in the questionnaire and discussion guide attached. As with all information collected, these data will be presented with all identifiers removed.

A.12 Burden Estimate (Total Hours & Wages)

A.12A Estimated Annualized Burden Hours

The total burden is estimated at 420 hours. Exhibit 2 provides details about how this estimate was calculated. Adults from study panels already established by Itracks and other organizations will be screened to determine if they have an adolescent child eligible to participate in the study and if they would be willing to have this child participate. We plan to conduct eight focus groups with approximately 20 participants. We estimate that we will need to recruit 25 participants for each group to have 20 who ultimately do participate, so we will need to recruit a total of 200 adolescents (8 groups x 25 recruits) to achieve a total final number of 160 participants (8 groups x 20 participants). We further estimate that we will need to screen 10 adults for each adolescent recruited. We therefore estimate that we will need to screen 2,000 adults in order to recruit 200 adolescent participants.

Screening of adults will take an average of 3 minutes (3/60 hour) per person, for a total burden of 100 hours. Each of the 160 focus group participants will spend an average of 2 hours responding within the test group or focus group, for a total response burden of 320 hours. The total response burden for both screening and focus group participation is therefore 420 hours. The time estimated for both the screening and focus group participation is based on the amount of material covered in the screener and the focus group discussion guide, and the estimation of both Itracks and RTI based on prior experience as to the length of time required. We anticipate that it will take one hour or less to respond to all of the questions over the three day period. Since teens will be encouraged to comment on other participants’ responses or write more detailed response, we estimate that many teens may choose to spend two or more hours over the course of the 3 days participating in the group. For the focus groups, we estimate that participants will be able to respond to the questions in 1 hour or less. However, participants will be encouraged to log on more than once a day and join in the discussion by commenting on the responses of other participants or responding to follow-up questions. Depending on their level of interest in the discussion, participants may spend as much as 2 or 3 hours on it. We estimate that the average amount of time will be 2 hours.

The study that affects the adults and adolescents will only occur over a one month period of time. However, this full study will take place over 1 year, therefore the estimated total hours and wages also serve as the estimated annualized burden hours. Four hundred and twenty hours are estimated for the year.

Exhibit 2. Estimated 1-Year Annualized Burden

Forms (If necessary)	Type of Respondent	Number of Respondents	Number of Responses per Respondent	Average Burden hours per Response	Total Burden Hours
Screener	Adults	2,000	1	3/60	100
Focus group discussion guide and mini-questionnaire	Adolescents ages 13–15	160	1	2	320
Total		2,160			420

A.12B Estimated Annualized Cost to Respondents

Respondents participate on a purely voluntary basis and, therefore, are subject to no direct costs other than time to participate; there are no start-up or maintenance costs.

Because it is not known what the wage rate category will be for persons screened or focus group participants (or even whether they will be employed at all), the figure of $10.00 per hour was used as an estimate of average minimum wage across the country for adults and the Federal minimum wage of $7.25.00 per hour for adolescents. The estimated annual cost to adults for the screening will be $1,000, and the annual cost to adolescents for participation in the focus groups will be $2,320, for a total of $3,320 for the study overall. (Exhibit 3).

Exhibit 3. Estimated 1-Year Annualized Cost to Respondents

Forms (If necessary)	Type of Respondent	Number of Respondents	Total Burden Hours	Hourly Wage Rate	Total Respondent Costs
Participant screening	Adults	2,000	100	$10.00*	$1,000.00
Focus group participant	Adolescents 13–15 years old.	160	320	$7.25*	$2,320.00
	Total				$3,320.00

*Estimates of average hourly living allowance for participants.

A.13 Capital Costs (Maintenance of Capital Costs)

There are no capital costs associated with this study.

A.14 Cost to Federal Government

With the expected extended period of performance, the cost estimate for the completion of this entire contract will be $2,804,193 over 5 years. This total cost covers all the Parent Communication Campaign evaluation activities and includes information collection and other evaluation tasks not included in this OMB application. This is the cost estimated by the contractor, RTI International, and includes the estimated cost of coordination with OPHS and the media contractor; evaluation plan development; instrument development and testing; RTI IRB and OMB applications; data collection; analysis; reporting; and progress reporting. Annual cost to the federal government is estimated to be $560,838.60 ($2,804,193/5).

A.15 Program or Burden Changes

There is no change in burden requested, as this is a new information collection.

A.16 Publication and Tabulation Dates

Because this data collection uses qualitative methods, statistical methods will not be used. Text of the entries posted on the bulletin boards will be entered into a software package designed to perform qualitative data analysis (NVivo). The text will be coded and analyzed around key topics. Differences across types of participants (by gender and racial/ethnic group) will be analyzed and reported on.

Findings will be summarized and shared with OPHS and relevant stakeholders for comment and interpretation. In addition to a presentation summarizing all findings from the focus groups, RTI will also prepare a manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. The manuscript will explore in more depth some of the key findings from the focus groups, and will allow the findings to inform a broad audience.

The key events and reports to be prepared are listed in Exhibit 4.

Exhibit 4. Time Schedule for the Entire Project

Project Activity	Date*
Receive OMB approval	January 2010
Recruit focus group participants	February 2010
Conduct focus groups	March 2010
Analyze data	March–May 2010
Prepare and submit summary of findings	June 2010
Prepare and submit manuscript article of findings	July–August 2010

*Dates are based on the expected 5-year period of performance

A.17 Expiration Date

The OMB expiration date will be displayed on all data collection instruments.

A.18 Certification Statement

There are no exceptions to the certification.

File Type	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
File Title	Evaluation of the Parents Speak Up National Campaign: Focus Groups with Adolescents
Author	RTI International
File Modified	0000-00-00
File Created	2021-02-02

0990-Parent communication_wadolescent_Study_10 1 10 revised Part A