Justification for Non-substantive Change

Notification of Change to the Sampling Methodology for a Selection of Primary Sampling Units (PSUs) in the National Smoke and CO Alarm Survey (SCOA Survey)

It has come to our attention that some of the selected PSUs in the survey are designated disaster areas and/or have been severely affected by fires or hurricanes in the last couple years. FEMA has provided this information to the CPSC project team and EurekaFacts. Affected areas may include locations in North Carolina, Texas, and California. The contractor, EurekaFacts, has provided and developed a plan, if needed, to address possible low response rates in these areas. The CPSC staff project team has reviewed the plan with EurekaFacts and determined that this plan is acceptable in planning for possible low response rates in these areas.

The existing selection of PSUs and secondary sampling units (SSUs) would not be resampled. The counties that may have been severely impacted by natural disasters as identified by FEMA and that coincide with specific SCOA Survey Census Tracts could have response rates as low as 15%, instead of the forecasted response rate of 25% that was presented in the Supporting Statement approved by OMB. To anticipate for possible low response rates, accounting for the possibility of greater hardship to administer the survey in disaster impacted areas, EurekaFacts plans to adjust the expected response rate downward and to increase the number of sample household units in these locations. For example, if a PSU location had an original expected number of sample households of N=33, based on a 25% response rate, the sampling would be increased to N=55 households based on a 15% response rate. Using the original sampling strategy, anticipating a 25% response rate, it is expected that for every one (1) complete four (4) households will need to be contacted, while under the more rigorous strategy, anticipating a 15% response rate in the FEMA impacted areas, it is expected that for every one (1) complete 6.67 households will need to be contacted.

This plan minimizes impact on the already prepared and implemented survey logistics and planning and maintains the current project schedule. If additional locations are identified as potentially having low response rates, a similar plan to increase the share of sampled housing units would be used to achieve the total number of homes surveyed as defined by the survey’s overall OMB approved methodology.