Non Substantive Change Request

Modified Request for Non-Substantive Change

National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses

OMB Control No. 0607-1002

The U.S. Census Bureau (Census Bureau) requests a non-substantive change to the currently approved National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses (NSSRN) Information Collection Request. On January 30, 2018, the Census Bureau received a three-year clearance by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the NSSRN data collection (OMB # 0607-1002, expires January 31, 2021).

This non-substantive change request for the 2018 NSSRN data collection is to send an email reminder, in addition to a mailed reminder letter, to people in mailing number 5. In our original plans, any person who receives mailing number 5 automatically gets sent a reminder mailing five days later. This change entails testing whether sending an email reminder in addition to the mailed reminder contact letter would have a positive effect (i.e. increase response) to the survey.

Estimate of Hour Burden

There will be no additional burden to respondents from this non-substantive change. The email addresses have already been acquired by the Census Bureau as part of the data included with the sample frame. The sample frame data and email addresses were provided by the National Council of State Board of Nursing, as well as several individual State Nursing Boards.

Email Experiment

The Census Bureau currently has email addresses for all sample states in the sample frame; however, not all cases have an email address. There will be two panels for the test: a control panel and a test panel. Samples for the two panels will be equal sizes and selected randomly within each state. Sample cases will be those cases in mailing number 5 with an email address. The control panel will receive only the mailed reminder letter whereas the test panel will receive both the mailed and emailed reminder letters

Research Questions

This email experiment is designed to answer the following questions; 1) Are the email addresses acquired from the sampling frame of sufficient quality? 2) Does sending an email reminder in addition to a regular letter have a positive effect on response rate? 3) Does sending an email reminder in addition to a regular letter help mitigate nonresponse bias?

Email Follow-Up Text

Subject: Respond Now to the National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses *

Dear [FIRST_NAME],

Over the past few months, the U.S. Census Bureau has tried to contact you by mail to ask for your help in the 2018 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses. If you have already responded, thank you.

If you have not responded, please do so today. The survey will be closing soon. You can complete the survey online at: https://respond.census.gov/nssrn.

Your login ID is:

Your response will help policymakers identify needs for future state and federal programs to assist nurses in providing better care to patients across the nation.

If you need any help or have any questions, please call toll-free at 1-888-369-3598 or email nssrn@census.gov.

Thank you for your participation in this important national survey.

* The NSSRN survey team is requesting to use the survey name in the subject line of the email. If the Census General Counsel does not approve, then the survey name will be replaced with U.S. Census Bureau.

Mailing 5 Respondents With/Without Email Addresses by State

STATE	Have Email Address	Do Not Have Email Address
AK	378	486
AL	1,634	87
AR	336	1,412
AZ	120	1,648
CA	1,355	1,549
CO	766	765
CT	105	1,761
DC	244	189
DE	1,030	81
FL	286	1,962
GA	136	1,953
HI	71	1,099
IA	1,293	37
ID	102	1,144
IL	1,792	220
IN	101	1,507
KS	97	1,381
KY	48	1,366
LA	869	914
MA	1,131	771
STATE	Have Email Address	Do Not Have Email Address
MD	1,687	1,184
ME	1,344	35
MI	61	1,670
MN	1,289	54
MO	599	801
MS	2,041	45
MT	1,087	152
NC	1,518	253
ND	832	10
NE	624	652
NH	644	635
NJ	1,444	636
NM	1,729	71
NV	1,694	109
NY	1,735	554
OH	842	913
OK	1,592	225
OR	1,161	67
PA	318	1,786
RI	810	448
SC	85	1,533
STATE	Have Email Address	Do Not Have Email Address
SD	977	142
TN	173	1,851
TX	354	1,887
UT	1,735	38
VA	1,176	1,297
VT	42	788
WA	1,260	300
WI	1,310	41
WV	39	1,532
WY	594	217
Total	**42,690	40,258

** The email experiment would include mailing 5 respondents that have an email address. Of those 42,690 respondents, half would be randomly selected to receive an email notification as well as the paper letter reminder.