Agency Information Collection Activities; Submission to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for Review and Approval; Comment Request; 2026 Census Test-Peak Data Collection

<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—Peak Data Collection</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, prior to the submission of the information collection request (ICR) to Office of Management and Budget (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 March 11, 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—Peak Data Collection” in the subject line of your comments. You may also submit comments, identified by Docket Number USBC-2024-0028, 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> The 2026 Census Test is the first of two major field tests planned to help the Census Bureau prepare for the 2030 Census. The 2026 Census Test is not an end-to-end test of all operations. Instead, it is a scaled-down version of the selected aspects of the census conducted in six field sites across the nation. The test also includes a nationally representative sample of households, who are able to respond to the test online, by phone, or by mail. The U.S. Census Bureau will test changes and enhancements planned for the 2030 Census in the real world and on a larger scale than research simulations allow. In 2028, a second test will serve as a dress rehearsal of census operations and handoffs between them. The goals of the 2026 Census Test are to test operational viability of new and revamped systems and methods researched and developed for the census, to identify, document, and address potential challenges; and to evaluate the efficacy of proposed changes to ensure the overall quality of the 2030 Census design. Some decisions, including names of operations and workload estimates, have yet to be made as the Census Bureau is finalizing the test plans; however, at this time, the Census Bureau can present aspects of the test that affect the public. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Self-Response</HD> Self-Response collects respondent information via the internet, phone interviews, and paper questionnaires. A description of the self-response modes for housing units (HUs) follows in the next sections. An HU is a private residence for a person or small group of people (such as a family or group of roommates). Each housing unit must have a separate entrance that provides direct access to the outdoors or to a common space within a building (such as a hall, lobby, or stairwell) without having to pass through the living quarters of any other people. A living quarters is typically a structure that is intended for residential use. However, any structure or place where someone is living (or where someone is sleeping without having a usual home elsewhere) is also considered a living quarters, even if it is not intended for residential use. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Internet Self-Response (ISR)</HD> Internet Self-Response (ISR) allows the public to respond online. ISR was available for the first time in the 2020 Census, and nearly 80 percent of all self-responses were collected via the ISR instrument. For the 2026 Census Test, ISR intends to maximize online responses from HUs to support expected reductions in data collection via paper, telephone, and in-field enumeration (IFE). The ISR design for the 2026 Census Test builds on the successes of the 2020 Census. Four principles govern the design work: (1) providing a secure web-based application for collecting individual responses, (2) providing the best user experience possible, including quick and easy access; (3) utilizing electronic data collection instruments to increase data quality; and (4) ensuring that the ISR systems can support anticipated volumes of responses and other systems usage needs while adhering to all appropriate systems, information security policies, and procedures for ensuring data security. This is important because self-response data are the most accurate and improve census data quality. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Mobile Questionnaire Assistance (MQA)</HD> Mobile Questionnaire Assistance (MQA) makes it easier for people to self-respond. MQA consists of scheduled community events jointly hosted by Census Bureau staff and community partners to engage with the public in communities who are hard-to-count and/or historically undercounted. Census Bureau staff work closely with community organizations, local governments, partners, and other stakeholders to host these events at neighborhood and community events, public gatherings, etc. to facilitate response to the census. MQA staff answer questions about the 2026 Census Test, provide promotional materials, and help the public respond. The keys to improving quality and coverage are developing strategies to engage hard-to-count populations. MQA supports self-response by providing an additional avenue for people to respond to the census, especially in areas with low or no internet access. Promotional materials, a social media presence, and targeted messaging for specific communities encourage participation. The 2026 Census Test of MQA will focus on designing and testing methods for operationalizing MQA rather than measuring increases in response rates. In addition, the Census Bureau is testing a data-driven approach to determine the most effective locations for MQA events. This approach examines historical and real-time data about response propensity (likelihood of different demographic groups or geographic areas to respond to the decennial census) alongside other demographic data to hyperfocus on those areas with historically low response rates or historically undercounted populations. Decisions concerning specific locations within the six 2026 Census Test sites to conduct MQA events have not yet been made. The selections will be based on historic response rates, demographic and logistical characteristics of the test sites, and the presence of partnership activities. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Census Questionnaire Assistance (CQA)</HD> Census Questionnaire Assistance (CQA) enables enumeration by helping people respond to the 2026 Census Test questionnaire by phone. Phone Self-Response is the enumeration of HUs by telephone. The Census Bureau provides live customer service representatives (toll-free numbers) who can take a caller's census response over the phone via a personal interview or help them complete the questionnaire (online or paper) themselves. An automated front-end system uses Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology to resolve basic questions, thereby reducing the number of agents required. Questionnaire assistance is provided in multiple languages as determined by research on current language needs. CQA also provides questionnaire support for respondents and administrators of specific noninstitutional group quarters (GQs). (See the definition of GQs in the section titled Group Quarters Enumeration.) Planning for CQA involves determining the expected inbound call volumes, the timing of peak volumes, and a plan for handling unexpectedly large volumes. CQA is responsible for staffing, training, and managing the day-to-day work of the call center during peak production. CQA analyzes data trends to enhance customer experience and provide efficient and accurate assistance. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Paper Data Capture (PDC)</HD> Paper Data Capture (PDC) collects 2026 Census Test responses on paper questionnaires. It is largely unchanged from the 2020 Census design. The PDC process consists of steps including mail receipt, document preparation, scanning and keying. A quality assurance (QA) process guarantees accurate data capture. Enhancements focus on improving system and processing efficiencies. <HD SOURCE="HD2">In-Field Enumeration (IFE)</HD> IFE is a field activity that collects responses in person. IFE captures the status of HUs and enumerates HUs that do not or cannot self-respond. This includes follow-up with nonmailable addresses and those that require an in-person visit ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 33k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━