Narrative of Changes (NOC) Table

Narrative of Changes

Collection Title: National Household Survey on Disaster Preparedness

OMB Control No.: 1660-0105

Current Expiration Date: 1/31/2025

Collection Instrument(s): FF-008-FY-21-103, FF-008-FY-21-104, FF-008-FY-22-122

There are several changes to the collection instruments being submitted for FEMA’s National Household Survey on Disaster Preparedness (OMB Control No. 1660-0105). Given the overarching structural changes to the forms (elimination of a question bank form and standardization of questions in the web/telephone forms), ICPD is submitting the below narrative of changes rather than a table with individual question changes.

Removal of Question Bank Form: The previous collection utilized a Question Bank (FF-008-FY-22-122) that contained nearly 100 pages worth of potential questions to choose from to include in the survey each year. This form has been eliminated and all questions being utilized for this collection have been embedded within the two primary data collection forms (FF-008-FY-21-103 and FF-008-FY-21-104), each of which are less than 25 pages.

Removed Content: The volume of potential information being collected through the instruments has been reduced significantly. Questions from the following topic areas have been eliminated from the instruments:

• Questions about specific natural hazards (including avalanche, drought, earthquake, extreme heat, flood, hurricane/typhoon, landslide, pandemic, snowstorms/extreme cold, thunderstorm, tornado, tsunami, volcanic eruption, wildfire)

• Questions about specific human-caused threats (active shooter, mass attacks in public places, bioterrorism, cyberattack, chemical emergency, hazardous materials (HAZMAT), electromagnetic pulse (EMP), nuclear explosion, nuclear power plants, power and communications outage, radiological dispersion, urban events)

• Questions about youth preparedness

• Questions about citizen responder programs

• Questions about FEMA curriculum

• Questions for members of Community Based Organizations

New Content: Questions relating to new topic areas that are of interest to the agency have been added to the instruments, including:

• Things that people are worried about in comparison to disasters and climate change

• Evacuation behaviors, concerns, and reasoning

• Specific home mitigation actions

• Challenges and barriers to preparing for disasters

• Hazard considerations and decision making related to moving to a new home and remodeling a home

• Obstacles to accessing preparedness resources or services based on self-identifying as a member of an underserved population

• Influence preparing for a disaster due to self-identifying as a member of an underserved population

Updating Content: Many questions from the previous instrument have been updated based on research-validated best practices for writing effective survey questions. The following are types of modifications that have been made to existing questions throughout the instruments:

• Reordering and simplifying sentence structure

• Using direct, plain language and simplified wording

• Changing question formats to use more direct questions and fewer select all that apply questions

• Shortening answer choice options (where possible) to reduce question fatigue

• Using research-based standardized scales for categorical intensity/severity modifier answer choices