GenIC Request for Approval

Request for Approval under the “Generic Clearance for the Collection of Routine Customer Feedback” (OMB Control Number: 0920-1027)

TITLE OF INFORMATION COLLECTION:

Focus Groups for Exploratory Research and Message Pre-Testing Among Foreign-Born Asian Americans

PURPOSE:

The purpose of the proposed focus groups is to explore knowledge and attitudes about Hepatitis B among foreign-born Asian Americans, and to pre-test proposed campaign messages for CDC’s Know Hepatitis B campaign. This will help determine whether proposed campaign materials are understandable, culturally appropriate, and able to motivate participants to talk to their doctors about getting tested for Hepatitis B. CDC is sponsoring this effort, which is intended to improve the current campaign and ensure high quality of information offered to the public.

Know Hepatitis B is a national multilingual communications campaign promoting Hepatitis B testing among Asian Americans. Though Asian Americans make up less than 5% of the U.S. population, they account for more than 50% of the 1.2 million people living with Hepatitis B. In fact, an estimated 1 in 12 Asian Americans are living with hepatitis B, but as many as 2 out of 3 people do not know they are infected. Testing identifies people living with hepatitis B and helps them take steps to protect their health, including starting treatment that can delay or reverse the effects of liver damage. To help implement the campaign, CDC has partnered with the nationally recognized coalition, Hep B United (HBU) (http://hepbunited.org). HBU and CDC have been approved through a formal agreement to co-brand the Know Hepatitis B campaign. HBU is a valuable campaign partner, and provides cultural and linguistic expertise to the campaign. In addition, HBU works with Asian American communities in 20 cities across the U.S., providing much needed access to this hard to reach and often linguistically isolated population.

DESCRIPTION OF RESPONDENTS:

The focus group respondents will be based upon their responses to the initial screening instrument, and because they live in one of three cities: Los Angeles, New York, or Houston. (and thus have a potential for experiencing campaign messages and materials.) These cities represent areas in which a local HBU partner actively works to educate Asian Americans about hepatitis B, as well as a city that has a focus group facility with experience with Asian Americans. The respondents will be foreign-born Asian Americans who have immigrated to the US, primarily speak Mandarin Chinese, Korean or Vietnamese and have limited English proficiency. In addition, English speaking Asians representing other Asian ethnicities will be recruited for the focus groups. As such, the respondents represent either current or potential customers of the Know Hepatitis B campaign.

TYPE OF COLLECTION: (Check one)

[ ] Customer Comment Card/Complaint Form [ ] Customer Satisfaction Survey

[ ] Usability Testing (e.g., Website or Software [ ] Small Discussion Group

[X] Focus Group [ ] Other:

CERTIFICATION:

I certify the following to be true:

1. The collection is voluntary.

2. The collection is low-burden for respondents and low-cost for the Federal Government.

3. The collection is non-controversial and does not raise issues of concern to other federal agencies.

4. The results are not intended to be disseminated to the public.

5. Information gathered will not be used for the purpose of substantially informing influential policy decisions.

6. The collection is targeted to the solicitation of opinions from respondents who have experience with the program or may have experience with the program in the future.

Name: ___Cynthia Jorgensen, DrPH_____________________________________________

To assist review, please provide answers to the following question:

Personally Identifiable Information:

1. Is personally identifiable information (PII) collected? [ ] Yes [X ] No

2. If Yes, is the information that will be collected included in records that are subject to the Privacy Act of 1974? [ ] Yes [ ] No

3. If Applicable, has a System or Records Notice been published? [ ] Yes [X ] No

Gifts or Payments:

Is an incentive (e.g., money or reimbursement of expenses, token of appreciation) provided to participants? [ ] Yes [X ] No

BURDEN HOURS

Category of Respondent	No. of Respondents	Participation Time	Burden
Individuals or Households – Focus Groups	150	1.5 hours	225 hours
Totals	150		225

FEDERAL COST: The estimated annual cost to the Federal government is $3500.

If you are conducting a focus group, survey, or plan to employ statistical methods, please provide answers to the following questions:

The selection of your targeted respondents

1. Do you have a customer list or something similar that defines the universe of potential respondents and do you have a sampling plan for selecting from this universe? [ ] Yes [X ] No

If the answer is yes, please provide a description of both below (or attach the sampling plan)? If the answer is no, please provide a description of how you plan to identify your potential group of respondents and how you will select them?

CDC has hired IW Group/GC Global Research, an Asian American specialty communications firm, to conduct the focus groups in Los Angeles, New York and Houston.  Eligible respondents will have been screened and selected based upon a telephone screening instrument conducted in their native language. Participants will be asked to volunteer for a focus group at a predetermined time and told that the group will be approximately 90 minutes in length and be conducted in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese or English. The purpose of the group is to talk about Hepatitis B and to provide feedback on the campaign materials. This will allow CDC to change and improve the proposed educational messages. The attached moderator guide is in English, but the actual groups will be conducted in the language spoken by the participants, led by a native speaker in that particular language.

Information gained from the focus groups will be in aggregate note format and will not contain any names or other personally identifiable information. The information gained from the focus groups will be qualitative in nature, and not used to generate statistical or generalizable information. The feedback obtained will be synthesized by the IW Group/ GC Global Research and provided to CDC in the form of a report. The report will describe knowledge and attitudes about hepatitis B, as well as contain program feedback with recommendations about which campaign messages resonate most with the participants. Information is internal and is not intended for release outside of the agency.

	Los Angeles, CA House of Marketing 2555 E Colorado Blvd Pasadena, CA 91107	New York, NY NY Consumer Center 28 West 44th St New York, NY 10036	Houston, TX Opinions Unlimited 3 Riverway Rd Houston, TX 77056	Total
In-language Groups
Foreign-Born Chinese	2	2		4
Foreign-Born Korean	2	2		4
Foreign-Born Vietnamese	2		2	4
Foreign-Born English-Preferred Groups
Foreign-Born Asian American	1	1	1	3
Total	7	5	3	15

Administration of the Instrument

1. How will you collect the information? (Check all that apply)

[ ] Web-based or other forms of Social Media

[ ] Telephone

[X] In-person

[ ] Mail

[ ] Other, Explain

2. Will interviewers or facilitators be used? [X ] Yes [ ] No

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