Justification to Change Request

Health Message Testing System, OMB No. 0920-0572, exp. 2/28/2015

Change Request

(Request for minor increase in burden hours to accommodate an immediate need)

December 30, 2014

The Health Message Testing System (HMTS) is a generic clearance managed by CDC’s Office of the Associate Director for Communication (OADC). OADC supports the HMTS as a shared resource for CDC programs. The HMTS provides a clearance mechanism for multiple CDC programs that need to collect information for refining health message concepts and testing draft materials for clarity, salience, appeal, and persuasiveness to target audiences.

On November 21, 2014, CDC published a 60-day Notice in the Federal Register announcing plans to extend the HMTS for three years. CDC anticipates that the Extension ICR will be submitted to OMB in late January 2015, for review and approval in the late February/March 2015 time frame.

CDC would like to process a GenIC for information collection scheduled to occur in January-February 2015 (i.e., before the Extension ICR can be processed). The number of responses available in the current HMTS inventory is sufficient to process the GenIC, however, the number of burden hours is insufficient.

CDC requests a minor adjustment (increase) in the number of burden hours currently allocated to the HMTS. Minor adjustments to a generic clearance are sometimes needed due to the complexity of estimating demand for a shared resource over a multi-year clearance period. The requested adjustment will allow immediate processing of a GenIC and facilitate information collection as scheduled in January-February 2015.

	No. Responses	No. Burden Hours
Total approved for February 29, 2012 – February 28, 2015	55,575	7,410
Used from February 29, 2012 – December 9, 2014	13,252	5,926
Available in HMTS inventory as of December 10, 2014	42,323	1,484
Pending GenIC: Information collection scheduled to occur in January-February 2015	3,800	1,585
Adjustment needed to accommodate the Pending GenIC	N/A	+100

Without this adjustment, progress on a pending project will be delayed and the HMTS will have unused capacity of 1,484 hours for the period of February 29, 2012 – February 28, 2015.

OMB approval of the 100 hour adjustment is requested, effective immediately.