From:	Sundra, Demia
Sent:	Wednesday, October 27, 2004 12:26 PM
To:	Sims, Thelma
Cc:	Gambescia, Sandra; Hancock, Robert; Birnbaum, Natalie
Subject:	Follow-up on OMB request 

Importance:	High
Thelma - Here is the response to race/ethnicity questions from John. Let me know if you need anything else. 
Regards, Demia

The section on Population Studied in the PRC IS is designed to capture the characteristics of a project’s study population. The section refers to the composite characteristics of the study population as indicated by the project’s principal investigator and does not refer to individual participants. In addition to providing an overview of the populations studied in the projects for a single grantee, the data from this section will be used to conduct queries across centers to determine which or how many centers focus on a specific population characteristic for the purposes of evaluation and reporting. Examples are summarizing the number of centers working with Asian populations, older adult populations, school populations, etc. 

General information on the proposed study populations may have been included in the grantees’ five-year funding applications. However, the information provided in the applications does not provide information on these categories specifically, and does not provide current information once the project is underway. Only by entering the population studied information into the PRC IS will the PRC program be able to efficiently and accurately summarize information across centers, providing specific, standardized, and up-to-date data on the populations studied across PRC projects.

There are specific reasons for the inclusion of the check box options “Unknown at this time” and “No specific focus on [characteristic, .eg., “ethnicity”].  The primary reason is that the centers are required to select a checkbox option from each of the sub-categories in this section of the PRC IS (ethnicity, race, age, sex, setting/site) and additional options besides those related to the sub-category were deemed necessary. 

For example, the reasons for including the check box option, “Unknown at this time” are that some centers, although they may have proposed a project in their grant application, may not have recruited participants as yet and therefore may not know the exact characteristics of their study population; hence the check box option, “Unknown at this time.” In addition, some centers may have proposed several projects, but will not know the details of the projects until they are reviewed and revised through meetings with their community advisory boards. 

Because the centers are required to update the system twice a year, it is possible that a center can make a selection “Unknown at this time,” and change the selection 6 months later.  In addition, the PRC program office project officers will be monitoring the system to ensure that these fields are indeed updated as projects develop. 

The main reason for including the check box option “No specific focus on [characteristic...such as ethnicity]” is that the characteristics of the study population may not be directly associated to the project results.  That is, some projects may not be aimed at a specific population characteristic because it is addressing a larger public health issue, such as increasing physical activity among older adults. In this case, race and ethnicity may not be as much a focus of the study as is the age group. Hence the option “No specific focus on race/ethnicity.”   In addition, some projects may not involve a study population at all, but rather focuses on a public health process such as capacity-building, social marketing, evaluation tools, or dissemination strategies etc.  In this case, it may be misleading to select “Not Hispanic or Latino” rather than having the option to select “No specific focus on ethnicity.” 

Demia L. Sundra, MPH
Evaluation Specialist
Prevention Research Centers
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
4770 Buford Highway, Mail Stop K-45
Atlanta, GA 30341
Phone: 770-488-5506
Fax: 770-488-5486
E-mail: dsundra@cdc.gov
www.cdc.gov/prc