Memo responses from FNS to OMB

Memorandum

Date: September 8, 2011

To: Julie Wise, OMB Desk Officer, Food and Nutrition Service

Through: Rachelle Ragland Green, Food and Nutrition Service, Information Clearance Officer; Ruth Brown OCIO Desk Officer

From: Donna Blum-Kemelor, Nutritionist

USDA – Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion

Re: Under Approved Generic OMB Clearance No. 0584 - 0523 - Generic Clearance to Conduct Formative Research

______________________________________________________________________________

The Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion of the USDA Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services is requesting approval to conduct in-depth ethnographic interviews, site visit interviews, and environmental scan interviews with nutrition education experts to ascertain their perceptions and opinions as to the use of technology in schools and communities as part of nutrition education efforts that may be developed as a result of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans implementation under Approved Generic OMB Clearance No. 0584-0523.

This research is scheduled to begin during the Summer of 2011. There are 3 components to this research:

1. Ethnographic interviews with 30 key informants who have particular expertise in the subject matter of this project.

   1. Survey pre-test interviews conducted with 9 key informants

2. Site visit interviews with 6 of the 30 key informants who completed the ethnographic interviews, to obtain additional, in-depth information.

3. Environmental scan interviews with 9 individuals at particularly innovative or exemplary nutrition education programs.

In each of the data collection components, a candidate list of possible interviewees will be prepared (see Table 1). After the total candidate lists are reviewed, potential candidates will be asked to participate in the interviews. Sufficient candidates will be contacted to reach the target number of individuals who agree to participate in the interviews, as noted in above items 1, 2, and 3. For each of the data collection components, this package includes the interview survey instruments, as well as e-mail communications that will be used to recruit and schedule participants, and the confidentiality agreement e-mail and form, as follows:

• Invitation e-mail, inviting the candidate to participate in the interview;

• Confirmation e-mail, thanking the candidate for agreeing to participate and confirming the date and time of the interview;

• Reminder e-mail, reminding the participant of the interview shortly before the interview takes place; and

• Confidentiality Agreement e-mail and form, providing the participant with a confidentiality agreement stating that any information obtained in the interview will be kept private and asking the participant to agree to keep private all information discussed during the interview.

The following information is provided for your review:

1. Title of Project: Market Research, Environmental Scan, and Ethnographic Research on Use of Communication Technologies and Digital Media Related to Nutrition and Physical Activity

2. Control Number: 0584-0523, expiration date: 12/31/2012

3. Public affected by this Project: Participants are individuals and households in the project will work in various fields from State, Local and Tribal Governments, individuals/households, and businesses including for-profit and not-for-profit. The participants will consist of a variety of individuals (authors, nutrition education practitioners, academic researchers, community-based representatives, health professionals, state/local government leaders, government agency personnel providing funding, business or corporate leaders, state/local school administrators, and parent-teacher organization representatives) selected from across the country.

4. Number of participants:

The number of individuals in each of these steps, as well as the type of interview, is shown in the Table 1 below.

Table 1

Data Collection Component	Candidate List	Agreed to Participate	Type of Interview
Ethnographic Interviews	50	30	Telephone
1a. survey pre-test interviews	9	9	Telephone
Site visit interviews	30	6	In-person
Environmental scan interviews	100	9	Telephone
Total	189	54

5. Time Needed per Response

For each candidate contacted during recruitment, an average of 35 minutes total will be needed for recruitment. This consists of: 10 minutes needed to read and respond to the invitation e-mail; 10 minutes to read and respond to the confirmation e-mail, 5 minutes to read the reminder e-mail, and 10 minutes to read and respond to the confidentiality agreement e-mail. Since not every candidate will complete all of these steps, the 35 minutes per candidate is an upper bound of the time needed for recruitment.

For each candidate who has agreed to participate in the interview, the ethnographic interview will require an average of 45 minutes of the participant’s time to complete (1 hour for the survey pre-test interviews); the site visit interview will require an average of 3 hours of the participant’s time; and the environmental scan interview will require an average of 45 minutes of the participant’s time.

6. Total Burden Hours on Public

Given these average estimations of time, the total burden hours for this research are shown in the Table 2 below.

Table 2

SUMMARY OF BURDEN - #0584-0523
Affected Public	(a) Description of Collection Activity	(b) Instrument Type	(c ) No. Respondents	(d) No. Responses Per Respondent	(e) Total Annual Responses (cxd)	(f) Hours Per Response	(g) Total Burden (exf)
( Key Informants) Reporting Burden
Individuals/households, businesses including for-profit and not-for-profit, authors, nutrition education practitioners, academic researchers, community-based representatives, health professionals, state/local government leaders, government agency personnel providing funding, business or corporate leaders, state/local school administrators, and PTO representatives	Pre-test Nutrition education instrument (ethnographic survey instrument)	Survey	9	1.00	9.00	1.000	9.00
	Initial Recruitment for potential participants	Invitation e-mail	180	1.00	180.00	0.1670	30.06
	Key informants who will participate	Confirmation e-mail	45	1.00	45.00	0.1670	7.52
	Key informants who will participate	Reminder e-mail	45	1.00	45.00	0.0830	3.74
	Key informants who will participate	Confidentiality agreement email	45	1.00	45.00	0.1670	7.52
	Key Informants	ethnographic interviews	30	1.00	30.00	0.7500	22.50
	Key Informants	site visit interviews	6	1.00	6.00	3.0000	18.00
	Key Informants	environmental scan interviews	9	1.00	9.00	0.7500	6.75
	Non-responders	n/a	126	1.00	126.00	0.0500	6.30
	Total Burden		189		495.00		111.38

For example, the 30 ethnographic interviews will require a total of 22.50 burden hours. Similarly, the site visit interviews will require a total of 18.00 burden hours for completing the visits and the environmental scan interviews will 6.75 burden hours to completing the scan interviews.

The total burden hours on the public would be 111.38. This includes the ethnographic pre-test survey interviews, communication with potential participants, data collection for the ethnographic, site visit, and environmental scan interviews, completion of the confidentiality agreement, and non-respondents’ time.

7. Project Methodology and Design: Data for the three research components will be collected through in-depth telephone and in-person interviews with key informants to ascertain their opinions on key issues in nutrition education that might be developed to convey the principles of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The interviews will focus on:

• Nutrition education goals for the children and students with whom the key informant works;

• Types of nutrition education approaches and programs currently used in classroom and community settings, along with the sources of educational materials and curriculum used by those programs and recommendations for expanding existing programs or trying new approaches;

• The extent to which, and the methods by which, the principles of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are incorporated into classroom-based and community-based nutrition education programs. Recommendations for innovative ways to disseminate nutrition education that is consistent with the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans; and

• The use of technology such as social networking websites, computer or video games, and other digital media in schools and communities as part of a nutrition education effort. Policies, equipment, access, or other issues that present barriers to using new technologies for educational, gardening, or school meal-related activities and for dissemination of the principles of the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

The data collection will address the following key questions:

• What are the characteristics of successful nutrition education approaches and programs that are being used in the school and community settings?

• Where is nutrition education being taught—which grade levels? Classroom, cafeteria, after-school? Is it a stand-alone curriculum or integrated into other subject areas? How much time is dedicated to nutrition education (one unit for a couple of weeks, throughout the year, one lesson, etc.)?

• What are the opportunities and barriers in utilizing technology and digital media, including social networking sites, for nutrition education that promotes adoption of behaviors consistent with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans?

• What types of nutrition education approaches and programs are needed? What would the ideal nutrition education program look like?

• What audience(s) would the ideal nutrition education program address?

• What are the expert’s recommendations for effective, innovative ways in which the recommendations outlined in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans could be incorporated into nutrition education?

• What are the expert’s nutrition education goals for students and is there a willingness to try traditional and innovative methods to provide nutrition and physical activity education?

• Are there any nutrition education programs that the experts would consider very successful that incorporate the concepts of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans?

Survey Pre-test

The ethnographic survey instrument was pre-tested and can be found in Appendix A. The pre-test of the ethnographic instrument was conducted from December 8 to December 13, 2010.   Nine interviews, with experts in nutrition education, were completed in total for the pre-test.  The pre-test interviews were conducted by telephone and ranged in length from 22 to 90 minutes.  The average length per interview was approximately 60 minutes. As a result of the nine interviews conducted during the pre-test, we identified and addressed the following issues:

• The question asking participants to identify one or more programs they have been involved in, needed to specify better how to select one single program for follow-up questions.

• The order of some questions needed to be revised. For example, questions about a specific program needed to be grouped together as they were dispersed in the questionnaire.

• Some questions were omitted or revised, as participants noted that some questions sounded repetitive and/or elicited overlapping information.

• Some questions attempted to elicit too much information from participants. These questions were split into multiple questions to facilitate better data collection.

• A number of questions could be combined together to elicit more useful information. Similarly, a number of questions could be removed from the protocol to reduce the interview time.

As a result of this feedback, a number of questions were revised, cut, combined and split as noted above. A revised and complete list of questions and probes can be found in Appendix B.

Recruitment Selection Process

Potential participants will be drawn from a list developed by IMPAQ International, LLC, an organization under contract with USDA/CNPP to conduct research for this project, based on:

• Market research and environmental scan reports, previously developed by IMPAQ International, LLC, as a component of their existing contract with USDA/CNPP, that highlight nutrition education programs and providers in the U.S. serving school-age children, including those that apply the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and may use different types of digital and social media to deliver the nutrition education; and.

• Suggested potential participants from USDA CNPP and FNS staff with expertise in nutrition education, and from IMPAQ's Nutrition Education and Technologies Advisory Group (a voluntary group of six nutrition education experts in the United States).  

From this list of potential participants, the following selection criteria will be used by USDA/CNPP and IMPAQ International, LLC to choose potential participants to recruit:

 

• Providers of nutrition education and/or physical education programs in:

o   School settings (from elementary to high school), including schools serving low-income, at-risk populations, and

o   Community-based settings (particularly programs geared towards those with low socioeconomic status (SES)).

• Providers of nutrition education with expertise and experience in

o    using approaches utilizing technology and digital media, including social networking sites, targeted towards school-aged children,

o   incorporating the principles of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans into a nutrition education program targeted towards school-aged children

• Individuals with sufficient background to easily answer questions related to nutrition education program of interest (i.e., questions related to their program such as program goals; target population characteristics; how the program was developed and evaluated; topic areas covered; use the DGA, MyPyramid, or MyPlate; unique or innovative aspects of the program, parental involvement in the program, barriers to success in accomplishing program goals, best practices for program implementation; and the use of any technology and digital media and social networking sites in the program). 

• A mix of nutrition education providers with diversity with respect to region of the U.S., racial, ethnic, and SES background of audience served, and urban and rural locations in the Southern, Northern, Eastern, and Western regions of the United States.

 Each potential participant will be evaluated based on whether they meet the above selection criteria; to make that assessment, information on the background of the potential participants will be gathered from existing data available from the Advisory Group and USDA/CNPP and FNS staff who recommended the participant and from pertinent publications or electronic resources. A spreadsheet including participant characteristics will be created to facilitate the review and selection process and ensure that those included are diverse and meet all the selection criteria. The qualifications of each potential participant will be reviewed and a preliminary list of individuals will be developed for inclusion in the final pool of participants for each of the three research components.  The six site visit participants will be chosen out of the final list of 30 key informants that will be included in the ethnographic research.  USDA/CNPP and FNS staff will make the final determination on the participants to recruit out of the preliminary lists for each research component and will prioritize the potential participants in the case that some decline to participate.

 

Potential participants will be contacted by e-mail and invited to participate in the study; and agreement to participate in the interviews will be requested.  Upon agreement, arrangements will be made for a time and date at the respondent’s convenience to conduct the interview. Participants will receive a reminder during the five days prior to the interview date.  Prior to the day of the interview, the interviewer will email a confidentiality agreement to the participant and obtain his/her signature prior to conducting the interview.

8. Federal Costs:$137,793

9. Confidentiality: Participants will be informed of safeguards and privacy act provisions before the interviews (see Appendices B, G and L). System of Record FNS-8, FNS Studies and Reports, published in the Federal Register on 4/25/1991 at 56 FR 19078, covers personal information collected under this research and identifies safeguards for the information collected.

10. List of Appendices:

The appendices provide interview questions and e-mail communications for each of the three research components:

1. Ethnographic Interviews:

• Appendix A. Pre-test Ethnographic Interview Instrument

• Appendix B. Final Ethnographic Interview Instrument

• Appendix C. Invitation e-mail

• Appendix D. Confirmation e-mail

• Appendix E. Reminder e-mail

• Appendix F. Confidentiality Agreement e-mail and form

2. Site Visit Interviews:

• Appendix G. Site Visit Interview Instrument

• Appendix H. Invitation e-mail

• Appendix I. Confirmation e-mail

• Appendix J. Reminder e-mail

• Appendix K. Confidentiality Agreement e-mail and form

3. Environmental Scan Interviews:

• Appendix L. Environmental Scan Interview Instrument

• Appendix M. Invitation e-mail

• Appendix N. Confirmation e-mail

• Appendix O. Reminder e-mail

• Appendix P. Confidentiality Agreement e-mail and form

(4) Delegations of authority made by the Secretary of Agriculture to the Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services

• Appendix Q. 7 CFR 2.19(a)(3)