Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; 2026 Census Test-Group Quarters Advance Contact (GQAC)

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Census Bureau</SUBAGY> <SUBJECT>Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; 2026 Census Test—Group Quarters Advance Contact (GQAC)</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Census Bureau, Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of information collection, request for comment. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Commerce, in accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) of 1995, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed, and continuing information collections, which helps us assess the impact of our information collection requirements and minimize the public's reporting burden. The purpose of this notice is to allow for 60 days of public comment on the proposed new information collection, for the 2026 Census Test—Group Quarters Advance Contact (GQAC) prior to the submission of the information collection request (ICR) to OMB for approval. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> To ensure consideration, comments regarding this proposed information collection must be received on or before January 3, 2025. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Interested persons are invited to submit written comments by email to <E T="03">ADDC.2030.census. paperwork@census.gov.</E> Please reference 2026 Census Test—Group Quarters Advance Contact (GQAC) in the subject line of your comments. You may also submit comments, identified by Docket Number USBC-2024-0026, to the Federal e-Rulemaking Portal: <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov.</E> All comments received are part of the public record. No comments will be posted to <E T="03">http://www.regulations.gov</E> for public viewing until after the comment period has closed. Comments will generally be posted without change. All Personally Identifiable Information (for example, name and address) voluntarily submitted by the commenter may be publicly accessible. Do not submit Confidential Business Information or otherwise sensitive or protected information. You may submit attachments to electronic comments in Microsoft Word, Excel, or Adobe PDF file formats. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Requests for additional information or specific questions related to collection activities should be directed to Michael Snow, Supervisory Program Analyst, Decennial Program Management Office, Decennial Census Management Division, 301-763-9912, <E T="03">dcmd.pra@census.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Abstract</HD> During the years preceding the 2030 Census, the Census Bureau will pursue its commitment to developing a well-managed, cost-effective, and high-quality decennial census. The Census Bureau will streamline data collection processes and implement new and improved methods to count the U.S. population for the 2030 Census. This includes new and improved methods for counting individuals residing in Group Quarters (GQs), such as college/university student housing, residential treatment centers, nursing/skilled-nursing facilities, group homes, correctional facilities, hospitals, and military barracks. GQ Administrators play a vital role in GQ data collection during Group Quarters Advance Contact. They provide critical updates about the facility and residents. One of the new data collection methods is to test the capability to allow GQ Administrators to electronically review, verify and update address and other frame information associated with their GQs, as well as to select a method of enumeration for their residents. The 2026 Census Test will enable the Census Bureau to test revisions to the capability to receive and extract verified and updated GQ address information electronically into a useful format prior to the subsequent Group Quarters Enumeration (GQE) operation. The specific data items that GQ Administrators will review include GQ type code, primary and secondary GQ contact name, title, telephone number and email address, name of the GQ, address of GQ, maximum number of people who could live/stay in the GQ and provide the expected number of people who will be staying in the GQ on Census Day. The Census Bureau will examine the efficiencies provided by receiving this information using a secure portal. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Group Quarters Advance Contact (GQAC)</HD> After the 2020 Census, the Census Bureau conducted lessons learned sessions which showed that some GQ Administrators desired to have the ability to provide GQAC operational responses electronically. During the GQAC operation, data will be collected to confirm information about the GQ that will help prepare the GQ Administrator and the field staff for the upcoming GQE operation. Specific data items include, collecting an enumeration method and depending on the method selected, scheduling an enumeration appointment. During the 2026 Census Test, the research questions for GQAC include: 1. Can a web-based GQAC operation provide opportunities to receive GQAC data directly from GQ Administrators? 2. Can a web-based data collection instrument that receives GQ-level data directly from GQ Administrators improve efficiency and reduce cost for the GQAC operation? 3. Can a web-based data collection instrument improve completeness and quality ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> lower item nonresponse rates, fewer data entry errors, etc.) in the collection of data at the GQ level? The 2026 Census Test will inform the Census Bureau's technological and operational planning and design for the GQAC operation. This test provides the opportunity to evaluate the enhanced procedures and technologies for conducting GQAC. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Operational Procedures</HD> The 2026 Census Test GQAC operation is designed to use web-based, in-office, and in-field methodologies to contact GQ Administrators prior to the enumeration. During the GQAC operation, data will be collected to confirm information about the GQ. Specific data items include collecting an enumeration method, the expected population for the GQ on Census Day, April 1, 2026, and depending on the method selected, scheduling an enumeration appointment. The 2026 Census Test GQAC will be fielded to 434 GQ facilities across two regional census areas that encompasses six test sites in Western Texas; Tribal Lands within Arizona; Colorado Springs, CO; Western North Carolina; Spartanburg, SC; and Huntsville, AL. The data collection period is February 2026 through March 2026. The Census Bureau will study the potential for using a Web-Based GQAC for frame building and enumeration for the 2030 Census. Thresholds will be used as input to determine completeness and quality of GQ facility level data provided by the GQ Administrators. • During Web-Based GQAC, GQ Administrators will log into a secure GQAC instrument to review, verify, and if needed, update the GQ information in preparation for conducting the upcoming enumeration operations. • During In-Office GQAC, office clerks will telephone GQ Administrators (using the phone number on file for the case or researching it using the internet) to conduct interviews while capturing responses and making entries into the In-Office GQAC instrument. • During the In-Field GQAC, census workers will follow-up with GQs that did not include pre-enumeration information such as contact information. Census workers will visit each identified GQ and conduct an in-person interview with the GQ Administrator using an automatic hand-held device to capture the same information as a Web-Based GQAC and an In-Office GQAC. • The information below will be asked of GQ Administrators across all three methods of data collection, web-based, in-office and in-field GQAC: ○ Verify or update the GQ name, address, GQ contact person's information, GQ type code, and maximum population. ○ Collect the following information to assist enumerators in conducting the upcoming enumeration operations: Preferred method of enumeration. Date and time for the Census Bureau to meet with the contact person to conduct the enumeration based on the enumeration method collected. Maximum population for the GQ. Expected population for the GQ on Census Day, April 1, 2026. Whether the GQ serves females only, males only, or both. Whether the GQ residents speak languages other than English. If the GQ resident speaks another language, an interpreter or the GQ administrator will assist. Whether there are security, privacy, or confidentiality concerns. Whether there are logistics concerns while conducting enumeration such as facility access requirements and procedures. Whether the contact person was responsible for other GQs. • <E T="03">Technical Design</E> • Test the use of automated instruments to conduct Web-based, In-Office, and In-Field GQAC. • Optimize the use of electronic response records to support the creation of the initial GQ universe for the GQAC Frame prior to enumeration. • Utilize the GQ Contact Frame Maintenance system that will include GQ contact information, such as GQ facility name (linked to the possible GQs, name of GQ Administrator/primary contact person and secondary point of contact, phone number of contact person, and email address of GQ contact persons). • Implement a process to virtually complete the Special Sworn Status form for GQ Administrators who select the Web-Based GQAC. • Implement a system to track/maintain completed Special Sworn Status forms (BC-1759) collected during the American Community Survey and other Census Bureau web-based surveys. This will help minimize the number of GQ Administrators who will be required to virtually complete a Special Sworn Status form during GQAC. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Method of Collection</HD> During the 2026 Census Test GQAC operation ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 16k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━