SSA - Administration for Children and Families Youth Programs – SOGI Items

Alternative Supporting Statement for Information Collections Designed for

Research, Public Health Surveillance, and Program Evaluation Purposes

Administration for Children and Families Youth Programs – Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Items

Pre-testing of Evaluation Data Collection Activities

0970 – 0355

Supporting Statement

Part A

October 2024

Submitted By:

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation

Administration for Children and Families

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

4^th Floor, Mary E. Switzer Building

330 C Street, SW

Washington, D.C. 20201

Project Officers: Caryn Blitz, Tia Brown

Part A

Executive Summary

• Type of Request: This Information Collection Request is for a generic information collection under the umbrella generic, Pre-testing of Evaluation Data Collection Activities (0970-0355).

• Progress to Date: The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is currently engaged in efforts to improve Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Program (SRAE) performance measures. PREP Performance Measures are currently approved under OMB # 0970-0497, and SRAE performance measures are currently approved under 0970-0536. These improvement efforts include a focus on youth participant survey questions on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) to better capture how youth self-identify and respond to the White House Executive Order on Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals (EO 14075). This is part of an agency-wide initiative to identify SOGI items for youth, for which ACF is beginning a process of pretesting potential SOGI questions, including with youth participating in PREP.

• Description of Request: This information collection request is to pretest SOGI items to be used with youth across ACF programs, including PREP and SRAE. The proposed pretests include two phases: 1) a series of virtual cognitive interviews (two rounds with English -speaking youth and one round with Spanish-speaking youth) to explore how youth understand the items and the relevance of the language used, and 2) revising the SOGI items based on findings from the virtual cognitive interviews, and translating them into Haitian Creole and Q’eqchi, to conduct in-person focus groups with ACF program participants to evaluate the sensitivity of the items and real-world application. The findings from these data collections will inform revisions and finalization of the SOGI measures to be used in ACF data collections with youth, including for the PREP and SRAE participant entry and exit surveys.

Data collected in the study are not intended to be generalized to a broader population, nor do we intend for this information to be used as the principal basis for public policy decisions.

• Time Sensitivity: ACF requests approval of the proposed data collections as soon as possible so the final, revised measures can be included in a subsequent revision request for the PREP and SRAE Performance Measures, which will need to be approved by Fall 2025.

A1. Necessity for Collection

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is currently engaged in efforts to improve the sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) items used in Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Program (SRAE) participant entry and exit surveys to better represent how youth self-identify, as well as to align with Executive Order (EO) 14075 (Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals). This is part of an agency-wide initiative to select SOGI items, for which ACF is beginning a process of pretesting potential SOGI questions with youth, including youth participating in PREP and SRAE programs. SOGI measures are used in performance measures reporting by multiple ACF programs, including PREP and SRAE. There has been quite a bit of recent research on best practices and guidance for collecting SOGI data (OMB, 2023; NASEM, 2022¹; Suen et al., 2022²; Beischel et al., 2022³; West et al., 2021⁴; Suen et al., 2020)⁵. However, this research has focused on adult respondents only. Since younger generations are increasingly identifying as LGBTQ+ (Gallup, 2023)⁶, it is becoming ever more relevant to collect SOGI data from youth respondents and to ensure that SOGI items asked of youth are age-appropriate. NASEM (2022) recommended expanded SOGI item testing among youth and non-English speakers. This information collection is a necessary step to allow ACF to make informed decisions when selecting SOGI items to be used in data collections that include youth respondents and for which the collection of SOGI information is appropriate.

A2. Purpose

Purpose and Use

This information collection will inform revisions to SOGI measures for ACF youth program participants including for PREP and SRAE youth participant entry and exit surveys. This effort supports equity and full inclusion for LGBTQI+ individuals as noted in EO 14075 by advancing the responsible and effective collection and use of data on SOGI measures, as discussed in section 11 of the EO. The purpose of this pretesting activity is to collect data that will allow ACF to begin to understand what SOGI measures are appropriate for use with the youth populations their programs serve, Findings from this data collection will ultimately inform the selection of youth SOGI measures appropriate for use with youth populations to be included in future ACF surveys of youth, including PREP and SRAE youth participant entry and exit surveys. ACF will use the results internally to inform subsequent information collection requests. Results of these methodological studies may be made public through methodological appendices or footnotes, reports on data collection development, data collection user guides, descriptions of respondent behavior, and other publications or presentations describing findings of methodological interest. The results of these pre-testing activities may be prepared for presentation at professional meetings or publication in professional journals. When necessary, results will be labeled as exploratory in nature and any limitations will be described.

This proposed information collection meets the primary goals of ACF’s generic clearance for pre-testing (0970-0355): to develop and test information collection instruments and procedures.

The information collected is meant to contribute to the body of knowledge on ACF programs. It is not intended to be used as the principal basis for a decision by a federal decision-maker, and is not expected to meet the threshold of influential or highly influential scientific information.

Guiding Questions

ACF proposes the following guiding questions for this pre-test:

• Do the youth respondents easily understand the questions and response options?

• Are the items inclusive and sensitive to youth from various backgrounds?

• Do the items accurately and adequately capture how youth self-identify?

Study Design

The proposed pretest includes two phases: 1) a series of virtual cognitive interviews to explore how youth understand the items and the relevance of the language used, and 2) revising the SOGI items based on findings from the virtual cognitive interviews to conduct in-person focus groups with ACF youth program participants to evaluate the sensitivity of the items and real-world application.

In the first phase of the pretest, we plan to conduct three rounds of cognitive interviews with youth; the first two rounds will be conducted with English-speaking participants, and the third round will be conducted with Spanish-speaking participants to assess translation and cultural appropriateness of the SOGI items. The study team will utilize a market research vendor to recruit all youth to participate in the virtual cognitive interviews. The vendor has a large group of panel members across the U.S., from various geographical areas and with a wide range of demographic characteristics. To recruit, we will use the Youth Screener for Cognitive Interviews (Instrument 1). To be eligible to participate in the cognitive interviews, youth need to be in grades 7-12. We will aim to recruit a diverse mix of students, including variations in gender identity, grade level, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, and primary language. For the race and ethnicity questions included in the screener, we plan to implement the SPD-15 2024 option to include minimum categories only and examples. Listening sessions with grantees conducted under the Formative Data Collections for ACF Research (0970-0356) have yielded consistent feedback that youth reading levels have declined considerably over the years. Grantees have asked us to simplify forms and responses. We also have the concern based on experience that if we provide selection boxes for subcategories, youth will fill in all of them or feel limited by only those response options. The option to list the racial and ethnic categories and provides narrative examples of racial and ethnic subcategories appears to be the best solution for working with youth in middle school and high school.

Using a market research vendor will be an efficient approach to identifying and recruiting youth who fulfill the diverse demographic targets desired for the virtual cognitive interviews, including Spanish-speaking youth. SSB Section B2 provides more detailed information regarding the key characteristics and number of youth targeted for each round of virtual cognitive interviews.

For the in-person focus groups, ACF will identify programs serving youth that would be appropriate focus group sites. the study team will work directly with programs to recruit youth for the in-person focus groups. The screener will not be used to identify youth for the in-person focus group; all program youth with consent will be eligible for the in-person focus groups.

Table A.1 summarizes the study design, including the data collection instruments, their content and respondent types, and the mode and duration of each data collection activity.

Table A.1. Study design summary

Data Collection Activity	Instrument(s)	Respondent, Content, Purpose of Collection	Mode and Duration
Virtual cognitive interviews with youth	Instrument 1: Youth screener for cognitive interviews	Respondents: Youth ages 12– 19 Content: Questions about respondents’ demographic characteristics, such as age/grade level, gender identity, sexual orientation, primary language, race, and ethnicity. Purpose: To assess eligibility and interest in participating in cognitive interviews; to ensure participants meet a range of demographic characteristics, and to provide demographic information about the pretest participants.	Mode: Web-based Duration: 5 minutes
Virtual cognitive interviews with youth	Instrument 2: Cognitive interview and Focus Group Discussion protocol	Respondents: Youth ages 12 – 19 Content: Questions around comprehension of items, how youth processed their responses, ease of response, and suggestions for revisions. Purpose: To assess clarity, inclusivity, and understanding of SOGI items	Mode: Virtual Duration: 1 hour
In-person focus groups with youth participants in ACF programs	Instrument 2: Cognitive interview and Focus Group Discussion protocol	Respondents: ACF youth program participants, ages 12 to 19 Content: Questions around comprehension of items, how youth processed their responses, ease of response, and thoughts on revisions. Purpose: To assess clarity and understanding of SOGI items and real world application	Mode: In-person Duration:1 hour

Other Data Sources and Uses of Information

To identify items to be pretested, the study team scanned available SOGI measures and the latest recommendations from OMB and NASEM. We also selected items from sources used with youth, including the GLSEN National School Climate Survey and the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), and reviewed the latest recommendations from the Human Rights Campaign for SOGI measures with youth. This request covers all data to be collected for the purpose of revising SOGI items for ACF programs.

A3. Use of Information Technology to Reduce Burden

The screener for the youth cognitive interviews will be a web-based survey administered through the market research vendor. The study team will conduct the youth cognitive interviews via a video conferencing software, such as Zoom. Focus group discussions with youth will be conducted in person. After obtaining permission from each participant, the Mathematica study team will audio-record all in-person discussion groups and video and audio-record all virtual groups with youth. These recordings ensure that information is accurately captured. The Mathematica study team will use the recordings to supplement the notes taken during the cognitive interviews and focus groups discussions. The video recordings will also allow for efficient transcript production, as draft transcripts can be automatically produced following the recording of these groups, which the Mathematica study team will review for accuracy.

A4. Use of Existing Data: Efforts to reduce duplication, minimize burden, and increase utility and government efficiency

The study team has scanned available SOGI measures and identified a set of items aligned with ACF’s research priorities and the latest recommendations from OMB and NASEM. The interview and focus group protocols will incorporate additional SOGI items from measures used with youth populations in the United States, including the GLSEN National School Climate Survey, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), and the latest recommendations from the Human Rights Campaign for SOGI measures with youth (Appendix C).

A5. Impact on Small Businesses

Youth participating in the in-person data collection will be recruited from programs run by small, nonprofit organizations supported by ACF. The study team will work closely with program staff to schedule the data collection activities and request only the information necessary for the activities. The youth focus groups will be scheduled to be administered in conjunction with scheduled program activities to help reduce burden on youth and the program staff. We will take a flexible approach in case some programs prefer a different process.

A6. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection

This is a one-time data collection.

A7. Now subsumed under 2(b) above and 10 (below)

A8. Consultation

Federal Register Notice and Comments

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations at 5 CFR Part 1320 (60 FR 44978, August 29, 1995), ACF published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the agency’s intention to submit a request to OMB for review of the overarching generic clearance for pre-testing activities. This notice was published on June 20, 2024 (89 FR 51888) and provided a sixty-day period for public comment. During the notice and comment period, no substantive comments were received. A second notice in the Federal Register announcing the agency’s submission of the overarching generic clearance for pre-testing activities for OMB’s review. This notice was published on August 26, 2024 (89 FR 68444) and provided a thirty-day period for public comment. During the notice and comment period, no comments were received.

Consultation with Experts Outside of the Study

We consulted with the following individuals and groups to inform the identification of measures for pretesting: Tiffany Waits, Mathematica; HHS LGBTQI+ Coordinating Committee Research and Data Subcommittee; Dr Christina Dragon, National Institutes of Health Sexual and Gender Minority Health Office, and Dr. Brett Brown, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation Division of Data and Improvement.

A9. Tokens of Appreciation

To recognize the value of the input provided by participants, help to remove barriers to participation, and affirm that contributions from those with lived experience are as valuable as those from other experts, we plan to provide honoraria to youth participants, as described in section A13.

A10. Privacy: Procedures to protect privacy of information, while maximizing data sharing

Personally Identifiable Information

For the virtual cognitive interviews, participants will be recruited from a market research vendor. The vendor maintains all personally identifiable information (PII) for their panel members. This information will not be shared directly with the study team. For the interviews, the vendor will share the demographics collected from the Youth Screener for Cognitive Interviews (Instrument 1) needed for recruitment with the study team, but this will not include any other identifying information about participants. At the time of the cognitive interviews, the vendor will provide a list of first names of participants, without any other identifying information.

For the in-person focus groups with youth, we will work in collaboration with select program offices within ACF to recruit youth who have participated in a PREP, SRAE, or other relevant ACF program. For that recruitment effort, ACF may need to provide first names and email addresses to the contractor to coordinate data collection. We expect the sites will manage the consent form process, and youth and parent names will not be linkable to the focus group data. Following the focus groups, all names and contact information will be destroyed. Data collected from the focus group discussions will not be linkable by the PII.

Information will not be maintained in a paper or electronic system from which data are actually or directly retrieved by an individuals’ personal identifier.

Assurances of Privacy

Information collected will be kept private to the extent permitted by law. Respondents will be informed of all planned uses of data, that their participation is voluntary, and that their information will be kept private. As specified in the contract, the Contractor will comply with all Federal and Departmental regulations for private information.

For the cognitive interviews and youth focus groups, participants and their parents or guardians, will be informed that groups will be audio-recorded for notetaking, and that they may opt out of these recordings (see Appendix B). Groups will only be recorded if all participants in the group agree to being recorded. The participant consent form also includes language explaining the unique privacy risks associated with participating in a group interview or focus group discussion. We will wait to begin recording the discussions until after everyone has introduced themselves. The transcribed notes will not include any names.

Youth will be informed that participation is voluntary and that nothing they say will be identified as theirs and they can refuse to answer any questions they do not wish to answer.

All notes and recordings will be stored on Mathematica’s secure network. No one outside the study team will have access to the data. Only Mathematica staff working directly on this project have access to the project folder on the network where recordings will be saved. All audio recordings will be destroyed as soon as they have been transcribed and notes will be destroyed per contract requirements.

The study will be reviewed by Mathematica’s Institutional Review Board (IRB), the Health Media Lab, and the IRBs overseeing the data collection of the selected programs participating in the focus group data collection, if needed.⁷ Outreach and data collection will not begin until the project has received IRB approval.

Data Security and Monitoring

The contractor shall protect respondents’ privacy to the extent permitted by law and will comply with all federal and departmental regulations for private information The contractor will ensure all employees receive training on data privacy issues and comply with all requirements. All Mathematica staff must sign an agreement to (1) maintain the privacy of any information from individuals, businesses, organizations, or families participating in any projects conducted by Mathematica; (2) complete online security awareness training when they are hired; and (3) participate in a refresher training annually.

The contractor will use encryption compliant with the Federal Information Processing Standard (Security Requirements for Cryptographic Module, as amended) to protect all sensitive information during storage and transmission. The contractor will securely generate and manage encryption keys to prevent unauthorized decryption of information, in accordance with the standard. The contractor will incorporate the standard into its property management and control system and establish a procedure to account for all laptop and desktop computers and other mobile devices and portable media that store or process sensitive information. The contractor will secure any data stored electronically in accordance with the most current National Institute of Standards and Technology requirements and other applicable federal and departmental regulations. In addition, the contractor’s data safety and monitoring plan includes strategies for minimizing risk, to the extent possible including sensitive information on paper records and for protecting any paper records, field notes, or other documents that contain sensitive information to ensure secure storage and limits on access.

No information will be given to anyone outside the study team and ACF.

A11. Sensitive Information ⁸

The goal of this data collection is to inform the finalization of SOGI measures for use in ACF data collection with youth, including PREP and SRAE youth participant entry and exit surveys. As such, the items for youth to review and provide feedback on are of a sensitive nature. Youth will be asked to provide feedback on suggested items, specifically around the clarity and inclusivity of the questions and response options. This feedback will allow ACF to develop measures that are relevant to the population and designed in a way that accurately captures youth sexual orientation and gender identity and meets the needs of both the PREP, SRAE, and other ACF programs and the youth that are served.

All pre-test participants will be informed that their participation is voluntary and that they can refuse to answer any questions they feel uncomfortable answering. This will be noted on the parent and participant consent form and again on the youth assent form (Appendix B). Group moderators will reiterate this verbally at different points throughout the interviews and focus group discussions, as scripted the Cognitive Interview and Focus Group Discussion Protocols (Instrument 2). Additionally, participants will be informed that the goal of the pre-test is about their understanding of the questions, not to capture their specific answers.

A12. Burden

Explanation of Burden Estimates

Table A.2 summarizes the estimated burden for each instrument. The following provides an overview of burden estimates. See Supporting Statement B for additional information about the target population and sampling.

1. Instrument 1: Youth Screener for Cognitive Interviews (English and Spanish). For the virtual cognitive interviews, a 5-minute web-based screener will be administered to the market research vendor’s panelists to recruit up to 150 eligible youth participants. This encompasses the targeted number of youth for all three rounds of cognitive interviewing (two rounds with English-speaking youth and one round with Spanish-speaking youth). The screener will be completed once for potential cognitive interview participants to determine eligibility and obtain demographic information to help ensure variability among the selected participants. We estimate it will be completed with up to 188 youth total, assuming about 80% are determined eligible.

2. Instrument 2: Cognitive Interview and Youth Focus Group Discussion Protocol (English and Spanish). This protocol will be used during the cognitive interviews with up to 150 youth recruited from the market research vendor. Each of the estimated 30 cognitive interview groups with up to 5 participants will last up to 60 minutes.

This protocol will also be used during the in-person focus group discussions with ACF program participants. We anticipate conducting 18 groups with up to 5 youth in each group. Each focus group discussion will last up to 60 minutes.

Estimated Annualized Cost to Respondents

We estimate the average hourly wage for youth respondents at $7.25, based on the federal minimum wage from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), 2023.⁹ For each instrument listed in Table A.2, the study team calculated the total annual cost by multiplying the annual burden hours by the current federal minimum wage ($7.25), as listed in Table A2.

Table A.2. Total burden requested under this information collection

Instrument	No. of Respondents (total over request period)	No. of Responses per Respondent (total over request period)	Avg. Burden per Response (in hours)	Total/AnnualBurden (in hours)	Average Hourly Wage Rate	Total Annual Respondent Cost
Youth Screener for Cognitive Interviews	188	1	.08	15.04	$7.25	$109.04
Youth Cognitive Interview Protocol	150	1	1	150	$7.25	$1,087.50
Youth Focus Group Discussion Protocol	90	1	1	90	$7.25	$652.50
Totals	278			255.04		$1,849.04

A13. Costs

It is important to provide those with lived experience, experts, staff, and others providing their feedback for these efforts with honoraria for their participation. As noted in a 2022 report by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation¹⁰ this “helps ensure a diverse population with varied views can participate.” Cognitive interview and focus group data are not intended to be representative in a statistical sense, in that they will not be used to make statements about the prevalence of experiences youth and young adults participating in ACF programs like PREP and SRAE. However, it is important to secure participants with a range of background characteristics to capture a

variety of possible experiences.

Directly engaging the communities ACF serves and including these individuals in ACF research is in line with the following priorities of the current Administration and HHS:

• Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government (EO 13985)

• Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government

• ASPE’s Methods and Emerging Strategies to Engage People with Lived Experience (2021)

• ASPE’s Recruiting Individuals with Lived Experience (2022)

Consistent with the guidance documents referenced, we propose to offer youth participating in the cognitive interviews and in-person focus groups an honorarium for their time spent providing their expertise and experience. Specifically, we propose to offer $75 honorarium for participation in the 60-minute cognitive interviews and focus groups to ensure a diverse representation of youth. The cognitive interviews require 60 minutes of active engagement in a video-based virtual setting, while the focus groups will require 60 minutes of active engagement in person. We also propose offering a $100 honorarium to sites that participate in the in-person focus groups in acknowledgment of their contribution to the study and their efforts to help coordinate the study activities.

Equitable compensation is in line with leading practices for ethical engagement of those with lived expertise and advancing equity for populations who have been historically underserved, including LGBTQ populations. Providing equitable compensation recognizes the value of the time provided by participants, helps to remove barriers to participation, and affirms that the contributions from those with lived experience are as valuable as those from other experts.

As noted in the 2022 report by ASPE this “helps ensure a diverse population with varied views can participate”.¹¹ Additionally, a 2021 brief by ASPE says that “Providing [those with lived experience] with compensation commensurate with the rates that other experts—i.e., experts engaged based on their expertise as practitioners or researchers, rather than lived experience—receive helped recognize the valuable and unique expertise that people with lived experience lend, which promoted meaningful engagement.” The report goes on to specify that not doing so could result in “unintended consequences…when lived experience engagements have scarce resources and experts are undercompensated, which can undermine, disregard, and/or marginalize people with lived experience”.¹²

A14. Estimated Annualized Costs to the Federal Government

The estimated total cost to the federal government for this study is $561,057 (Table A.3). This includes costs for planning, recruitment, collecting, processing, and analyzing the data, and preparing memorandums.

Table A.3. Estimated total cost by category

Cost Category	Estimated Costs
Field Work (planning, recruitment, and data collection)	$420,884
Publications/Dissemination (analysis)	$140,173
Total/annual costs	$561,057

A15. Reasons for changes in burden

This is for an individual information collection under the umbrella clearance for pre-testing (0970-0355).

A16. Timeline

Table A.4 contains the timeline for collecting and analyzing data. The study team expects to conduct the cognitive interviews in Fall 2024. The study team will make revisions to the SOGI items based on feedback from the cognitive interviews and use the revised items in conducting focus groups with youth, which will be administered in early winter 2024-2025. The pretest effort will be completed by late spring 2025.

Table A.4. Schedule for pre-test data collection

Activity	Timinga
Virtual data collection and analysis
Cognitive interviews	Within a month after approval
Data Analysis	Two months after approval
In-person data collection and analysis
Youth Focus group discussions	Three months after approval
Data Analysis	Five months after approval

^a After obtaining OMB approval

A17. Exceptions

No exceptions are necessary for this information collection.

Attachments

Appendix A: Outreach to participants (English and Spanish)

Appendix B: Consent and Assent Forms (English and Spanish)

Appendix C: SOGI Questions for Pretest (English and Spanish)

Instrument 1: Youth Screener for Cognitive Interviews (English and Spanish)

Instrument 2: Cognitive Interview and Focus Group Protocol (English and Spanish)

1 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2022. Measuring Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Orientation. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26424.

2 Suen, L. W., Lunn, M. R., Sevelius, J. M., Flentje, A., Capriotti, M. R., Lubensky, M. E., ... & Obedin-Maliver, J. (2022). Do ask, tell, and show: Contextual factors affecting sexual orientation and gender identity disclosure for sexual and gender minority people. LGBT health, 9(2), 73-80.

3 Beischel, W. J., Schudson, Z. C., Hoskin, R. A., & van Anders, S. M. (2022). The gender/sex 3× 3: Measuring and categorizing gender/sex beyond binaries. Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity.

4 West, B. T., & McCabe, S. E. (2021). Choices matter: how response options for survey questions about sexual identity affect population estimates of its association with alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. Field methods, 33(4), 335-354.

5 Suen, L. W., Lunn, M. R., Katuzny, K., Finn, S., Duncan, L., Sevelius, J., ... & Obedin-Maliver, J. (2020). What sexual and gender minority people want researchers to know about sexual orientation and gender identity questions: a qualitative study. Archives of sexual behavior, 49(7), 2301-2318.

6 Jones, J. W. (2023). U.S. LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2%. Gallup News. https://news.gallup.com/poll/470708/lgbt-identification-steady.aspx

7 Programs that participate in the focus groups may be governed by their own IRBs. Some of these IRBs may accept Mathematica’s IRB approval and waive their own standard processes, but others may require that Mathematica complete their own standard IRB application process as well.

8 Examples of sensitive topics include (but not limited to): social security number; sex behavior and attitudes; illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior; critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close relationships, e.g., family, pupil-teacher, employee-supervisor; mental and psychological problems potentially embarrassing to respondents; religion and indicators of religion; community activities which indicate political affiliation and attitudes; legally recognized privileged and analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians and ministers; records describing how an individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment; receipt of economic assistance from the government (e.g., unemployment or WIC or SNAP); immigration/citizenship status.

9 Characteristics of minimum wage workers, 2023: BLS Reports: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

10 Recruiting-Lived-Experience.pdf (hhs.gov)

11 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. “Recruiting Individuals with Lived Experience,” by Jasmine Forde, Sonia Alves, Lauren Amos, Ryan Ruggiero, Annalisa Mastri, Kate Bradley, Nkemdiri Wheatley, Tonyka McKinney, Dana Jean-Baptiste, Jeremiah Donier, Madison Sandoval-Lunn, Wilnisha Sutton, Roger De Leon, Kataney Prior, Laura Erickson, Amanda Benton, and the HHS staff peer learning community on equitably engaging people with lived experience. Washington, District of Columbia: 2022. https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/recruiting-individuals-lived-experience.

12 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. “Methods and Emerging Strategies to Engage People with Lived Experience. Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation,” by Syreeta Skelton-Wilson, Madison Sandoval-Lunn, Xiaodong Zhang, Francesca Stern, and Jessica Kendall. Washington, District of Columbia: 2021. https://aspe.hhs.gov/reports/lived-experience-brief.

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