NSCH-LC 2023 OMB Non-Sub Change Request_2 (1)

OMB Non-Substantive Change Request

Department: Commerce

Agency: U.S. Census Bureau

Title: National Survey of Children’s Health – Longitudinal Cohort (NSCH-LC)

OMB Control Number: 0607-1028

The U.S. Census Bureau requests a non-substantive change to the currently approved NSCH-LC Information Collection Request. The Census Bureau last received a three-year clearance by OMB, which expires on September 30, 2026.

Background and Justification

The National Survey of Children's Health - Longitudinal Cohort team is seeking approval to re-contact a small number (~1,000) of our 2023 NSCH-LC sample. To maintain respondent confidentiality and minimize respondent burden, the NSCH-LC web survey is programmed as a single path instrument that begins with a full rostering of all eligible children or young adults ages 3-24. The web survey first collects data about the household (child/young adult roster) and then compiles and sorts that data for input into a programmed algorithm to select the child or young adult “on the spot” that most closely aligns with the child or young adult we are trying to collect information about. Since the algorithm is fixed within the web instrument and nuances occur that fall outside of the bounds of the programmed selection criteria, our team has identified approximately 700 web completes so far where the web survey selected the incorrect child or young adult as the subject of the topical survey questions. Therefore, the respondent (parent or caregiver) provided responses about a different child or young adult than we were expecting. This exists for our single-stage web instrument only and not for our two-stage paper instruments because for paper we are able to review the programmed subsampling selection for accuracy before paper topical mailing invitations get sent out. The number of these cases is expected to increase throughout web data collection as more cases come in, so we are using an estimate of approximately 1,000 total cases that would be impacted for the entire 2023 NSCH-LC data collection period. The survey sponsor, HRSA MCHB, has again asked Census to attempt to collect this missing data.

Data Collection

A new letter (NSCH-LC-TW2) will be created and used to request the missing data on the other child or young adult. This letter will be mailed out with a paper topical questionnaire booklet containing the descriptive information for the child or young adult that should have been sampled.

We would like to include this mail package with the already scheduled Fourth Topical Mailing which includes an initial invitation along with up to two additional non-response follow-up mailings. Returned topical questionnaire booklets will be merged with the web screener data previously collected for that case. Data capture of the topical forms will proceed as normal.

Burden

Of the 1,000 households we would like to follow up with, we expect approximately 50% will complete the paper topical for the correct child which results in approximately 500 total respondents. There is a slight increase in respondent burden hours associated with this request as shown in the table below.

Type of Respondent	Questionnaire Name	Expected Number of Respondents	Number of Responses per Respondent	Average Burden per Response (in hours)	Total Burden Hours
Parent, Caregiver, or Previous Caregiver	Topical Instrument ONLY	500	1	.667	334
NSCH Burden Total		500			334