Justification for Topicals Revision

Request: The U.S. Census Bureau requests clearance for the topical survey questionnaires for the Ask U.S. Panel (OMB number 0607-XXXX).

Purpose: The objective of this research is to test retention of the panel sample members to successfully complete a topical survey approximately four weeks after enrollment. The General Population Panel will receive a topical survey that is a pilot questionnaire that tracks and monitors attitudes toward the decennial census in intercensal years. These public opinion data will enable the Census Bureau to provide guidance for communicating with the public and for future planning of the 2030 Census and to inform on issues or events that could have an impact on self-response rates in 2030. The Department of Defense Panelists will receive a topical survey that captures general wellbeing information of service members and their spouses.

The pilot questionnaire will be administered as the first topical survey to the recruited panel members for the Ask U.S. Panel. Panelists will be invited to respond to this survey on a rolling basis, approximately 4 weeks after they have enrolled in the panel. Data will be collected between May 17 and August 30, 2022.

Population of Interest: The pilot questionnaire will be asked of all panel members recruited into the Ask U.S. Panel to date (both General Population and Department of Defense samples).

Language: English and Spanish only

Timeline: We are requesting to field these questions for from approximately May through August, 2022.

Average Length of Interview: 15 minutes based on the number of items and past experience on data collection times for similar instruments.

The current Ask U.S. Panel current approval includes a baseline and screener questionnaires which will already have been collected. The proposed General Population pilot questionnaire will include approximately 45 items. The contents of the General Population pilot include awareness about the census, self-reported intent to participate in the census, self-reported participation in the 2020 Census, importance of the census, motivators and barriers for filling out the census. The pilot also includes sections to measure media habits and misinformation that respondents may have seen during the 2020 census. The questionnaire also includes a set of questions to measure place of birth, generation and feedback that respondents may have as participants of the Ask U.S. Panel. Most of the items and topics included in the questionnaire have been used in the past from surveys such as the 2020 Census Barriers, Attitudes and Motivators Survey, the 2020 Tracking Survey. These questions will help the Decennial Census program look for ways to measure public opinion attitudes toward the census in intercensal years.

The Department of Defense pilot questionnaire will include approximately 20 items. The contents of the Department of Defense questions include questions about perceived government responsiveness, informal resource network, formal resources, discrimination, food security, and a debriefing. These are considered baseline topics for the Department of Defense to understand overall wellbeing of military members and their spouses and how this changes over time, given national events.

Attached to this letter is the annotated pilot questionnaires that contains all questions plan to be asked.

The contact person for questions regarding data collection and study design is:

Jennifer Hunter Childs

Center for Survey Measurement

U.S. Census Bureau

Washington, D.C. 20233

202-603-4827

jennifer.hunter.childs@census.gov