[Federal Register Volume 64, Number 26 (Tuesday, February 9, 1999)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6365-6367]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 99-3015]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Food and Drug Administration
[Docket No. 98N-0698]
Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission for OMB
Review; Comment Request; Survey of Consumer Attitudes Toward Potential
Changes in Food Standards of Identity
AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration, HHS.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing that the
proposed collection of information listed below has been submitted to
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review and clearance
under the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (the PRA).
DATES: Submit written comments on the collection of information by
March 11, 1999.
ADDRESSES: Submit written comments on the collection of information to
the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, OMB, New Executive
Office Bldg., 725 17th St. NW., rm. 10235, Washington, DC 20503, Attn:
Desk Officer for FDA.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Peggy Schlosburg, Office of
Information Resources Management (HFA-250), Food and Drug
Administration, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857, 301-827-1223.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In compliance with the PRA (44 U.S.C. 3507),
FDA has submitted the following proposed collection of information to
OMB for review and clearance.
[[Page 6366]]
Survey of Consumer Attitudes Toward Potential Changes in Food
Standards of Identity
Under section 903(d)(2) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act
(21 U.S.C. 393(d)(2)), FDA is authorized to conduct research relating
to foods and to conduct educational and public information programs
relating to the safety of the nation's food supply. FDA is planning to
conduct a telephone-mail-telephone consumer survey about consumer
attitudes towards potential changes in food standards of identity under
this authority. A nationally representative sample of 600 adults, who
regularly do the food shopping for their households, will be selected
at random and asked if they would agree to complete a mail survey.
Participation will be voluntary. Detailed information will be obtained
about how consumers would be affected by changes to standards and what
their preferences are for retaining, revising, or eliminating
standards. FDA is reviewing standard of identity regulations for foods
in order to determine which elements of those regulations are most
important to fulfilling the goals of those regulations. The information
to be collected will address consumer attitudes toward potential
changes in the standards of identity for particular products. The
products will be chosen to represent general categories of products
that share theoretically relevant characteristics. The changes will be
chosen to represent general types of changes that might be made to
standards of identity. Therefore, the information collected on
particular changes in the standards of identity for particular products
should provide information that can be generalized to other changes and
other products. The information collected will be used to shape FDA's
policy on revising standards of identity.
In the Federal Register of September 3, 1998 (63 FR 47031), the
agency requested comments on the proposed collection of information.
FDA received five comments. One comment noted that Table 1 in the
September 3, 1998, notice appeared to contain a typographical error.
According to this comment, the ``0.8'' in the ``Hours per Response''
column for receiving the initial recruiting telephone call should be
``0.08'' if that number is to be consistent with the other numbers in
that table. FDA agrees with this comment and has revised the estimate
for the initial telephone call accordingly.
Some comments argued the proposed survey is unnecessary because
industry groups have already indicated how they believe FDA should
revise the standards of identity governing their products. FDA values
the input of industry and intends to give full consideration to
industry recommendations on revising standards. However, the primary
purpose of standards of identity is to assist consumers. Therefore, FDA
believes that information on consumer attitudes toward revising
standards is also relevant to revising standards.
Some comments suggested that the proposed survey is unnecessary
because similar surveys have already been done by industry groups and
the results of those surveys have already been shared with FDA.
According to these comments, FDA already has sufficient information on
consumer attitudes toward revising standards of identity to proceed
with the task of reviewing and revising standards. Although the surveys
that have been performed by industry groups contain much information
that is relevant to revising standards, FDA disagrees that gathering
additional information is unnecessary. One of the issues on which FDA
believes that additional information is necessary is consumer attitudes
toward the tradeoffs involved in revising various types of standards of
identity in various ways. FDA believes that this issue has not been
adequately addressed in the surveys that have been performed by
industry groups.
Many comments suggested that the proposed survey will be too
general to have any practical utility for revising standards of
identity. According to these comments, survey results on consumer
attitudes on changing any given standard will not be relevant to the
determining consumer attitudes toward changing any other standard.
These comments suggested that the surveys that have been performed by
industry groups do not suffer from this drawback because they deal with
particular products. FDA acknowledges the difficulties involved in
extrapolating the results of consumer attitudes across different
standards and products. However, FDA believes that standards and
products can be grouped in a meaningful way and that the results of
consumer attitudes toward a particular change in the standard governing
a particular product will be related to consumer attitudes toward
similar changes in the standards governing other products of that type.
FDA agrees that it would be more straightforward to do a separate
survey on every possible change in every standard. However, FDA has
insufficient resources to implement such an approach. As indicated
previously, FDA agrees that the surveys performed by industry groups on
particular products contain much information that is relevant to
revising those standards. However, FDA does not believe that those
surveys provide all the information that is relevant to revising those
standards.
Other comments suggested that the proposed survey will have no
practical utility because consumer attitudes toward the hypothetical
changes to standards discussed in the survey will not be relevant to
determining consumer attitudes toward the types of changes that FDA
would actually make to standards. FDA disagrees with this comment. The
types of changes discussed in the proposed survey will reflect the
types of changes that FDA might actually make.
Some comments argued that the proposed survey is fundamentally
misguided because consumers are not generally familiar with standards
of identity and will not be able to respond to questions concerning
changes in standards of identity. FDA is aware that most consumers are
not already familiar with standards. The survey will be written in such
a manner that consumers are provided with the information they need to
consider changes to standards.
Finally, some comments noted that interpreting the results of
consumer surveys is complicated because those results depend crucially
on what questions are asked and on how those questions are asked. These
comments noted that industry has considerable experience conducting
consumer surveys and recommended that FDA elicit the input of industry
experts when designing the survey instrument. FDA is aware of the
issues that are involved in interpreting the results of consumer
surveys and believes that it has access to sufficient technical
expertise to conduct consumer surveys without the assistance of
industry experts. In addition, FDA notes that it does not intend to
revise standards based only on the results of this particular survey,
but intends to also take into account the results of all other relevant
surveys, including those sponsored by industry groups, and all other
relevant information.
FDA estimates the burden of this collection of information as
follows:
[[Page 6367]]
Table 1.--Estimated Annual Reporting Burden1
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Annual
No. of Frequency per Total Annual Hours per Total Hours
Respondents Response Responses Response
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Receive initial recruiting
telephone call 600 1 600 0.08 48
Read instructions and complete
mail survey 600 1 600 0.59 354
Complete followup telephone
interview 600 1 600 0.08 48
Total 450
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\1\ There are no capital costs or operating and maintenance costs associated with this collection of
information.
The burden estimate is based on two rounds of focus groups
conducted to test the survey instrument. The estimates for the length
of the initial and followup interviews are based on similar studies
that have been conducted.
Dated: January 31, 1999.
William K. Hubbard,
Associate Commissioner for Policy Coordination.
[FR Doc. 99-3015 Filed 2-8-99; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-01-F