Emergency Request Letter

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES

Public Health Service
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Health Statistics
3311Toledo Road
Hyattsville, Maryland 20782

June 15, 2020
Dominic Mancini
Deputy Director
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
Office of Management and Budget
Washington, DC
Subject: Request for Emergency Review and Clearance
Dear Mr. Mancini:
Pursuant to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) procedures established at 5 CFR Part 1320,
Controlling Paperwork Burdens on the Public, I request that the proposed information collection
project, “Changes to 2020 National Health Interview Survey in light of Novel Coronavirus (2019nCoV) (OMB 0920-0214)” be processed in accordance with section 1320.13, Emergency Processing.
I have determined that this information must be collected prior to the expiration of time periods
established under Part 1320, and that this information is essential to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention’s (CDC) emergency response to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus.
As of June 14, 2020, the pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has resulted in
2,063,812 confirmed human infections and 115,271 deaths in the United States. However much
remains unknown about the pandemic’s impact on the health and social well-being of the American
public.
Congruent with its mission to monitor the health of the United States population and its access to and
use of health care, the NHIS proposes to add questions that will increase our understanding of the
populations who were most at risk or affected by the coronavirus and the impact of the coronavirus
pandemic on their access to or receipt of needed health care. The NHIS provides a unique
examination of the coronavirus pandemic because of the wealth of information that is already
collected about the health of NHIS respondents. For example, the NHIS can be used to examine
whether people with a variety of chronic health conditions experienced different impacts during the
pandemic. The NHIS does not offer active surveillance of the pandemic, but will rather offer a
retrospective examination of the impacts experienced by U.S. households.
We are also requesting clearance for a telephone follow-up with NHIS sample adults interviewed in
2019. The follow-up makes it possible to compare the health of these sample adults in the year prior
to the pandemic with their health after the start of the pandemic. The follow-up also provides an
alternative vehicle for NCHS to collect high-quality data in the second half of 2020, when in-person
data collection still may not be possible in some areas of the country.
This request is to add 31 COVID-19 related items to the NHIS beginning July 1 and ending
December 31 and to field a follow-up telephone survey with 2019 NHIS sample adults beginning
August 1 and ending December 31. CDC cannot reasonably comply with the normal clearance given

the urgent necessity to collect and disseminate health care access and measurement error-related data
in a timely manner. Therefore, CDC requests a 180-day emergency clearance to launch this pair of
general population surveys to obtain these data. Please provide an approval/disapproval
determination of this request to collect information under an emergency clearance by close of
business on June 23, 2020.
Sincerely,

Jennifer H. Madans, PhD
Acting Deputy Director
National Center for Health Statistics
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention